5.14 2024

Friends Center for Children Hosts Groundbreaking and Sneak Peek of our Flint Street Family Campus

Friends Center for Children welcomed Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Senator Richard Blumenthal to our future headquarters on Flint Street to showcase the progress our community is making toward expanding access to high-quality child care in New Haven.

New Haven is a childcare desert, and child care is dramatically unaffordable for many New Haven families. At the gathering, our community celebrated the strides we’ve made to build what will become our central hub at the two-acre site of the former Cine 4 movie theater. The expanded classroom capacity we will provide at our Flint Street campus will help ensure our city’s families can access and afford infant-toddler and preschool education for their children. 

 

The event featured a groundbreaking of the new school building, which will be built as part of phase II of the Flint Street project. Guests were also invited to participate in a hardhat tour of the phase I renovation project of what was the movie theater building. Phase I will open this fall, accommodating 32 infants and toddlers supported by 10 educators, along with a community theater, centralized administrative offices for an additional eight full-time employees, and a resource lending library for our educators. With the opening of Flint Street, Friends Center is providing 10 new jobs for teachers in Connecticut’s early childhood education workforce as well as child care for 32 working families, significantly contributing to the local economy.

 

Friends Center’s expansion is made possible in part through $1.1 million in federal Community Project Funding for Connecticut’s Third District secured in a 2024 appropriations package by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

“I feel privileged to have contributed to Friends Center for Children’s growth and service delivery within our community,” said Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. “Infrastructure for child care is essential. With these investments, we are protecting the financial security of women and families while enriching the lives of our youngest citizens.”

 

Senator Richard Blumenthal said, “The childcare crisis poses a threat to families, and the demand for services continues to grow. I am thrilled that Friends Center for Children will be able to expand their work, providing care and education to children across the New Haven region. They are at the forefront of filling a critical need for families. I will continue to fight for investments to support child care and early childhood education to support those impacted, including providers, educators, parents, and children.”


Currently, Friends Center provides early childhood care and education for children ages three months to five years at our East Grand and Blake Street sites (accommodating 60 students in its preschool program and 64 infant/toddler spots). By 2027, through a multi-phase renovation and construction project at its new Flint Street campus, and an expansion via a new center to be housed at the ConnCORP on Dixwell project, Friends Center will accommodate a capacity of 80 preschool spots and 184 infant/toddler spots across its centers.