The child care system is severely strained across the country. Teachers are paid low wages, tuition is sky-high, and there are not enough seats for all families who want it. The cost of operating an infant or toddler room can be unsustainable, causing some centers to close classrooms even as families are waiting to get in.
Dave Hoffman, the senior vice president of community engagement for the Celtics, said the team’s charitable arm, the Shamrock Foundation, wanted to tackle “child care deserts” by opening more classrooms so parents can go to work.
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“There’s just more behinds than there are seats,” Hoffman said in an interview with the Globe. “The cost is prohibitive as well.”
The organization had been looking to do a project like this for four years. Kash Cannon, the senior director of community programs for the Celtics, was the one who reached out to the Providence Housing Authority back in 2023 to see if they would be interested.
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Cannon had a personal connection. Her mom Sonja lived at Manton Heights as a child, and Kash grew up in Chad Brown, another public housing development in Providence. Sonja Cannon, who was a teenage mother back then, now owns her own preschool, and Kash Cannon is running community programs for the Celtics.
“Because my mom had kids so young and my grandmother was a single mother, I don’t think they would’ve been able to do it without the government assistance,” Cannon told the Globe.
The average household income at Manton Heights, which is in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, is $18,000. Melissa Sanzaro, the housing authority’s executive director, said one of the quasi-public agency’s goals is to provide “wraparound” services — not just housing — to help the 2,600 families who live in their properties.
“It’s dreaming big, but it’s necessary,” Sanzaro said. The Celtics’ offer fit right in with that mission. Amica Insurance became involved in 2024 after becoming the team’s jersey sponsor, and its foundation is splitting the cost with the Shamrock Foundation.
Only families who live in Providence Housing Authority properties will be able to enroll in the new center. There are 403 total children under the age of 5 living in the public housing developments, with 88 living at Manton Heights.
“For some percentage of these 42 students, the day that they walk in as enrolled students is going to be the day that they break a cycle of poverty for their families moving forward,” Hoffman said. “That’s a pretty special thing to be a part of.”
The building where the child care center will be located previously hosted an after-school program for kids, but is currently underutilized. The lower-level will be gutted and retrofitted with three classrooms for children ages 0 to 5, with new furniture and an outdoor play space. A basketball court is on the upper floor.
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The buildout is expected to cost roughly $2 million. The rest of the $4 million investment will pay for the center for operate for four years, including money to close any “gap” between government subsidies families receive for child care and the total tuition.
“Once parents start working, they might start earning too much” to qualify for the subsidies, Sanzaro said, a common problem for families seeking to get out of poverty.
State subsidies also don’t always cover the cost of operating the classroom, a oft-cited problem for centers trying to stay open. Hoffman said the four years of funding is meant to provide a “head start” for the child care provider that will run the center.
And Sanzaro said the quasi-public agency will not charge rent or utilities to the child care provider even after the four-year pilot, hoping to keep the overhead costs manageable.
The housing authority is currently looking for a child care provider to operate the center.
Hoffman said the Shamrock Foundation chose early education as a top priority because data showed how critical access to high-quality early education is, including its impact on future incarceration rates and income levels.
“If you can give a kid a few years of high-quality access to early education before kindergarten, so many different long-term life outcomes are positively impacted as a result,” he said.
To be sure, 42 new seats will not solve the child care crisis, which is short thousands of seats across the country. But Hoffman hopes to inspire other teams or corporations in the private sector to put their charitable dollars toward early education.
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“This problem is more far-reaching than what a professional basketball team is able to do,” Hoffman said. “We’re solving it for some families from Manton Heights. Another company out there can solve it for another location.”
The Shamrock Foundation will also soon start offering grants for early education in other New England states, Hoffman said.
Cannon, who will speak at Thursday’s groundbreaking, said her mom only has positive memories of the public housing complex, where she used to pay 10 cents to watch a movie in the same building that will become the early education center.
“There’s a common misconception about the type of families that live in housing authorities,” Cannon said. “I think it’s important to dispel that myth.”
It will be a “full-circle moment” to be able to give back.
“When I’m up there on the podium, the people that are looking at me … I am them.”
Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.