Detroit daycare New Beginnings donates $50K to students' families
DETROIT (FOX 2) - The COVID-19 crisis has taken a heavy toll on metro Detroit and Detroit even more so. But it has also allowed for plenty of generosity.
"New Beginnings just playing our natural role with how we operate since 97, it was like hey we've had this plan set aside and now it's time to utilize it," said Pageant Atterberry.
New Beginnings Child Care and Academy is fighting COVID-19 with cash, softening the pandemic's financial blow on vulnerable Detroiters.
Atterberry, the co-owner of New Beginnings, says they're donating a total of $50,000 to their students' families.
"We understand that there's been a shift financially in everyone's pockets, especially here in Wayne County and Detroit," she said. "We know our parents and their needs and it just kind of just hit us as a family, because we're a family owned business. It hit us all because we've done so many things in the past, let's do something else."
Kids from more than 150 families are enrolled at New Beginnings. It closed at the onset of state wide Stay at Home order and was allowed to reopen with certain safety protocols in place.
But eventually fewer and fewer parents, many of whom are now working from home if at all, brought their kids to daycare.
"In the meantime because they're not utilizing our child care center and we understand what's going on in the community as far as financially, economically and even with employment, it was like, 'Let's just do this to help the families with their essential needs," she said.
New Beginnings is not the first. FOX 2 has been covering how organizations have been giving Detroiters a hand up.
RELATED: Family Independence Initiative gets money to Detroiters struggling during pandemic
From Black Leaders Detroit providing small businesses with grant money to stay afloat to the Family Independence Initiative putting a total of more than a million dollars in more than 2,000families' bank accounts.
Bankole Thompson, editor of the anti-poverty think tank The Pulse Institute and columnist for the Detroit News.
"It is important and it is encouraging to see that there are folks from within our community that re stepping up to aid other folks that need help," he said.
"I wrote a column for The Pulse about how COVID-19 has really given us a reality check on the poverty crisis," Thompson said. "And it is a moment for us to really look within ourselves and ask the question can we demonstrate a can-do spirit for the least of these."
New Beginnings said it had these funds set aside in case of an emergency - and the XCOVID-19 crisis fit the bill. It will go a long way to helping families whose children are enrolled there.