St. Mark's Funding Gap Assistance

St. Mark’s Day Care Center, Inc. is a licensed Connecticut Childcare Early Learning Center and is located in the East End of Bridgeport. We have been providing full day, year round programming for the past 49 years to approximately 100 infants, toddlers, pre-school and school-age children. Our services have earned us the right to be certified by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

St. Mark’s Day Care Center, Inc. needs your support. Due to The State of Connecticut’s extensive reduction to the Care 4 Kids subsidy funding for low and moderate income working families, we are compelled to reach out to our friends and community partners for assistance. Many of the families we serve reside in the East End and Greater Bridgeport. Since the Care 4 Kids funding reductions, families are not able to afford the child care tuition fees and Centers are experiencing funding management difficulties. The loss for St. Mark’s is approximately $200,000 or 12% of our annual budget. Your generous gift will help us close the funding gap and continue to implement the following programs and services to families.

• A comprehensive educational early learning program
• Maintain our literacy and art program
• Maintain and support our child nutrition program
• Maintain and upgrade our three enclosed playgrounds
• We need tools for the children’s indoor/outdoor gardens and provide food/shelter for the animals in our Nature Center – Both are hands on Science experiences
• We need to continue our Music Appreciation Program
• We want to provide tuition assistance to families in need
• We are in dire need of upgrading our 21 year old roof. Potential cost approximately $11,000. Funds are also needed to replace a broken fence. Potential cost approximately $2,500.
• We also need to replace or upgrade all recess lighting throughout the Center
• Employee compensation and benefits must also be maintained