Over the past 10 weeks, AQE joined Senator Jabari Brisport in visiting 28 care programs and spoke with over a thousand parents and providers as part of the statewide Child Care Tour.

Using the extensive input gathered from the tour participants, today we published a report that illustrates in great detail all the reasons why universal child care is crucial for New York's families. But now we need to make sure our state’s leaders — leaders like Governor Kathy Hochul — hear our demands. Let Governor Hochul and your State Legislators know that we need their support to make universal child care a reality in New York, and we need it now!

We already knew that the demands of parents and providers for meaningful action on child care have been ignored for far too long. But along the tour, we saw the extraordinary damage caused by this negligence, and we saw that the industry is on the verge of collapse. New York cannot afford to continue to ignore the crisis in child care, or to meet it with another band-aid solution. We need New York State’s leaders to take action now.

Governor Hochul herself joined us for our conversation in Buffalo, and shared with us the ways in which the child care crisis has impacted her personally. In just a few short weeks, the New York State legislative session will kick off, and it is essential that our state leaders are ready on day 1 to take on this issue. Email Governor Kathy Hochul and your State Legislators, urging them to make funding universal child care a top priority this session.