According to the Iowa Starting Line, a nonprofit daycare center in Decorah is closer to its $7 million goal to build a new facility that will allow it to serve an additional 250 children.
The Sunflower Child Development and Discovery Center is able to leverage a $500,000 contribution from the Winneshiek County Board of Supervisors into additional grant opportunities to help with the surely needed daycare expansion project.
“Child care is one of our priorities along with affordable housing, and roads and bridges, of course, so that really is helping them get that project off the ground to have that matching funds,” said Winneshiek County Supervisor Shirley Vermace during a virtual ARPA forum sponsored by Progress Iowa.
Vermace said the daycare wasn’t the only project that benefited from ARPA funds in Winneshiek County. The supervisors allocated $300,000 to the community of Festina for a sewer project. The unincorporated town is also home of the “World’s Smallest Church.”
“They need that badly and we didn’t want those few people who live in Festina to pay for that sewer project by themselves,” Vermace said. “It would be a huge amount of money for each of them.”
