Ribbon Cutting Marks Expanded Child Care Option for Connellsville

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Connellsville, PA (August 5, 2021) The Learning Lamp and Highlands Hospital have teamed up to improve access to quality child care to working families in Connellsville, Fayette County. The partners are co-hosting a ribbon cutting Friday, August 13 a 10 a.m. to officially celebrate the grand opening of The Learning Lamp Center for Children @ Highlands Hospital.

The new child care center, which is equipped to care for children aged birth to 12, opened in April and offers full-day care from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., as well as preschool for ages 3, 4, and 5 taught by a certified teacher, summer camps, and school-age care on days off from school.

Lack of child care can impact a parent’s ability to seek or maintain employment and challenge businesses to fill positions with workers that are reliable. About 40% of workers at Highlands Hospital are parents of young children, and many have had difficulty finding child care close to home.

“I’m relieved to have a child care center move in close to work and home,” said Amanda, a Highlands Hospital employee and Connellsville resident. Amanda had previously spent over an hour driving her son to and from child care because the only provider accepting new children was in a nearby town 20 minutes away.

The child care shortage was not solely an issue for existing staff. It was also a potential deal breaker for prospective job candidates. Highlands Hospital had talked about the importance of finding ways to make child care more accessible to its workers for years. In 2020, the hospital achieved that goal by partnering with The Learning Lamp to open a full-service child care center on its extended campus. The center, which shares space with the Highlands Hospital Regional Center for Autism at 700 Park Street in Connellsville, currently serves 14 children and is enrolling preschool and school-age children for the fall.

Although Highlands covered the full cost of renovating the building, enrollment of children is not restricted to hospital staff. The center, which is open to all children, promises to benefit the region as a while. Upon completion of The Learning Lamp’s outdoor play space, the center can ultimately serve up to 57 children, their parents, and the businesses that employ them.

The Learning Lamp is a nationally accredited, nonprofit provider of early childhood and school-age care programs. Founded in 2003, the organization has delivered peace of mind to working parents by serving thousands of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-aged children through 19 licensed child care programs throughout Cambria, Somerset, Bedford, Blair, Indiana, and now Fayette counties. For more information and center registration contact Laura at 724-603-2311 or click here.

The Learning Lamp is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage all children in the support they need to succeed. We deliver high quality programs that are affordable and accessible to families of all income levels. In 2020, The Learning Lamp served 28,938 youth/adults from 51 public school districts and 36 other schools and organizations in 13 Pennsylvania counties.

 Our programs include: child care and preschool, after school programs, tutoring, SAT prep, school staffing, alternative education programs for at-risk students, online learning, credit recovery, drug and alcohol prevention programs, and grant writing and project consulting for schools.