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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Students Get Help With Child Care Costs


Being a college student and parent just got a little easier, at least financially, with a federal grant to the Monroe Community College Child Care Center to help subsidize child care costs.

The government awarded the child care center a $631,840 CCAMPIS Grant (Child Care Access Means Parents In School), targeted to assist students and prospective students who are also parents and may be having difficulty affording the high cost of childcare. MCC is among only 25 percent of campuses across the country that received the grant. It will be used over the next four years to assist those MCC students for whom the cost of quality care has been a barrier to accessing postsecondary education.

“Depending on the range of assistance that each family needs, we expect to be able to help hundreds of college-bound parents,” said Director Audrey Abbondanzieri, who has been with the center since it opened in 1991. Average fees for full-time care will be as low as $20 per week.

The grant supports the center’s mission of providing affordable early care and education services to the children of MCC students. The MCC Child Care Center, which serves children between 8 weeks and 5 years of age, also provides its high-quality care to the children of parents who are MCC faculty and staff and anyone who lives in the Rochester area. The center, accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, has been identified as a model site for infant and toddler care.

For more informaton on the subsidy and to visit the child care center, call Audrey Abbondanzieri at (585) 292-2640 or visit https://www.monroecc.edu/depts/childcr/index.htm.

James Cunningham
Child Care Center
10/31/2005