Big Announcement from the CUPW Child Care Fund

… Ariane says hello… my name is Ariane Hotte and I am thrilled to introduce myself as the new CUPW Childcare Coordinator. I am a Registered Early Childhood Educator, and I have over ten years of experience organizing and facilitating programs to meet the diverse needs of families.
I am honored to learn from Shellie Bird who has been your childcare coordinator for the last
9 years. Under her guidance, expertise and unwavering passion for this work, I am seeing what the Child Care fund means for working families and the broader community. Let me tell you,
I know how challenging it is for parents and caregivers to find affordable, high-quality care. Families deserve a healthy work/life balance which is why I am eager to continue the significant work of the fund.

… Shellie says goodbye… It is with a heavy heart that I leave a job that has inspired me over the past nine years as the CUPW Child Care Coordinator. With the CUPW Child Care Fund in its 33^rd year of operation we continue to work hard to achieve the Funds goal of supporting the Child Care needs of CUPW and Union of Postal Communications Employees (UPCE), members and their children.

You know the adage; nothing stays the same, everything is always changing. So, it is with the CUPW Child Care Fund. We continue to build on and improve upon the early successes of the Fund. We have seen our Child Care partners grow and to deliver more Child Care space.

For example, in Newfoundland we started in 1996 with the CUPW Resource Centre (Family and Child Care Connections) in St John’s to deliver licensed home Child Care to members there. Today Family and Child Care Connections is rolling out licensed home Child Care across the province.

In Fredericton, New Brunswick, we partnered with a small stand-alone child-care centre, The Preschool Centre which today operates six Child Care centres delivering more Child Care spaces to more members across Fredericton. We worked with key community partners to launch a first of its kind disability portal, disability-supports.ca. This website came about because members told us of their frustrations trying to find online information about disability supports and services they need for their children.

There is so much I could say about the achievements of your Fund. I leave knowing there is still so much work to do to continue to meet the Child Care needs of members. And I know that Ariane is up for the task and has what it takes to keep the Fund moving forward in meeting the Child Care needs of postal workers.

In Solidarity,