What happens when more than 2,000 Park City women join together to make a lasting impact in the community? On Wednesday, three local non-profits found out at the annual Women’s Giving Fund’s Grant Celebration.
PC Tots was selected as the top recipient of a $60,000 grant while runners-up SOS Outreach and Summit Community Gardens and EATS walked away with $20,000 each.
Executive Director Sue Banerjee said PC Tots is a nonprofit organization that provides high-quality, affordable childcare and early education to families that live or work in Summit County.
“Part of our intent with this money is to support our working families and the children that we provide services to with tuition scholarships," she said. "We understand that the cost of care has increased and families face lots of economic pressures.”
Banerjee said early childcare providers are in the bottom 2% of wage earners in Utah so they intend to use part of those funds to support their teachers who are mostly women.
“Their work has historically been underappreciated and undervalued and we want to support them with higher wages and benefits," she said. "So that's really how we are looking at this holistically and in the ways we can help women and children in the community.”
PC Tots was founded when it was awarded the Women’s Giving Fund’s very first grant. A group of visionary women who wanted to make a lasting impact on the community for women and children started the fund in 2013. That first year, it found 1,000 women to donate $1,000 and that original $1 million endowment has grown to $2.4 million.
The fund is now run under the umbrella of the Park City Community Foundation. Member Services Manager Rebecca Blanchette explained its impact. “To date, we have pushed more than $283,000 into the community.”
Last year’s grant was $45,000. This year, that amount more than doubled to $100,000, thanks to the members who made tax-deductible contributions of at least $1,000.
Park City mom Patricia Garcia has two kids who attend PC Tots.
“I'm super excited that this just means that we're going to be able to help more kids, and be able to be open and have livable wages for our teachers, so they can be happy to come to work," she said. "And I just think about how PC Tots has always been there for me.”
Garcia is the patient access director for another local non-profit, People’s Health Clinic. She said because her children are well-cared for at PC Tots, she can, in turn, be there for the many people who need her.
