Emerge California’s Child Care Initiative
Support our effort to raise $15,000 in 15 days to ensure that women have the resources
to succeed as California’s next political leaders
What is the Child Care Initiative?
Established on Mother’s Day 2019, the Child Care Initiative is a new Emerge California program that offers child care grants to any current Emerge California program member during the time of their candidate training. The goal of the initiative is to ensure that women leaders across the state have the resources needed to participate in Emerge California’s signature candidate training program.
Why is this important?
Women make up half of California’s population, yet hold only 30% of the seats in the California State Legislature and 31% of elected local seats. If we want our elected bodies to reflect the diversity of our state, we must break down traditional barriers and increase access to resources that women need to be leaders. Emerge California graduates win at a nearly 70% rate when they run for office. However, when Emerge California program members are unable to attend candidate training due to child care issues, they miss out on sessions that will help them be successful when running for office. Emerge California’s new child care grants will allow program members to participate fully in each candidate training session.
How exactly will it work?
Emerge California has always believed that lack of resources should not prevent any Democratic woman from applying for and participating in the training program. Scholarships have always been available to help cover the cost of the $1,500 tuition.
Now, with the establishment of the Child Care Initiative, we are expanding the scholarship fund to offer child care grants to any woman accepted into Emerge California. Program members can apply for a child care grant upon acceptance into the program, or can request a child care grant anytime during the program to cover an unexpected child care cost. The child care grants will help ensure that program members can attend all candidate training sessions and Emerge California sponsored events.
How can I support Emerge California’s Child Care Initiative?
Our goal is to raise $15,000 – this amount would cover approximately 750 hours of child care. This would mean that we could grant each one of our current program members up to 10 hours of child care (at the California average rate of $20 per hour, per child) during the 70-hour candidate training program.
You can support the Child Care Initiative by: