Lou Scheibler, executive director of the Southeast Childhood Collective, and Nikki Love, creative director, briefed the committee on the nonprofit’s programs that support families and the child-care workforce across Southeast Alaska.

Scheibler said the organization runs a Parents as Teachers home-visiting program (serving roughly 100 families directly with about 70 on a waitlist), an annual early-childhood conference, a diaper bank (distributing over 66,000 diapers per year), and a federally registered childcare apprenticeship. She described the apprenticeship and credentialing work as critical to maintaining and expanding provider capacity, noting the program has graduated cohorts and expanded into Yakutat and Sitka.

Nikki Love described a multi-phase capital plan to build a comprehensive family and child-care center on a secured 3.5-acre site in the Hansinger subdivision off Egan Drive. Phase 1 would include a large childcare center serving up to 100 children, space for apprenticeship training, and shared offices for partner nonprofits. The group provided a rough pro forma and a feasibility study they described as positive; Scheibler said a capital cost estimate for the broader facility concept is about $16,000,000 (that estimate includes additional features such as an indoor park and partner agency offices).

Committee members asked clarifying questions about the apprenticeship-to-licensure pathway, reliance on potential rural health transformation funding, annual fundraising levels, and whether the Collective directly provides childcare services now (it does not). Scheibler said the Collective currently stabilizes the local childcare market through city-funded monthly operating grants that have helped sustain provider wages and prevent closures.

Next steps: staff indicated finance-related questions will be central to FY27 budget conversations; the Collective will follow up with any requested financial detail and continue its capital campaign and grant-seeking efforts.