Finding affordable child care is a challenge for many northland families, but the Duluth public library is trying to help get answers.

The library hosted a meeting Tuesday evening for parents of young children on the topic of local child care and preschool options. Carmella Hatch is the early literacy coordinator for the library and she told us why library officials felt compelled to step in.

“We’ve heard from a number of different parents and caregivers over the last couple years,” Hatch said.
There are a lot of questions about child care, lots of confusion about types of child care, where to find it, how to find it, how to get it funded. We realize that we don’t have all the answers, so we thought as a library we could bring in experts and help get information for folks.”

There was an open question and answer time plus presentations by area day care providers. Discussions ranged from, what’s out there and how to find good care, to possible funding sources to offset rising daycare costs for families.

If you missed Tuesday’s night’s meeting, there’s actually a second night of the program coming up on Thursday of this week, January 18th. That meeting is also from 6:30 to 8:00 at the downtown Duluth library.