City Partnership with Care.com Matching Essential Workers with Childcare

Learn about ways the community can support this effort

The City of Palo Alto recently launched a partnership with Care.com to positively impact our community through connecting our essential workers with the care they need for their families. This blog provides more on the ways the community can help during this public health emergency by enrolling to be a caregiver so that essential employees can find and be matched with childcare they need.

Matching the Child Care Needs of Essential Employees with Local Caregivers

Families everywhere are working to adapt as we shelter in place in response to our public health emergency. With school and daycare closures, few are feeling the strain more than our essential workers, including City of Palo Alto employees such as police officers, dispatchers, firefighters, emergency medical personnel and other City employees, plus our broader community including hospital workers, supermarket staff and more who are on the frontlines working to support us and keep us safe during this uncertain time.

Care.com CEO Tim Allen, said, “As we battle the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing has become glaringly clear to everyone: when safe, quality childcare is unavailable, working parents struggle to balance the demands of work and family. But for parents who are essential workers on the frontlines, there is no balance…only impossible choices no parent should have to face. That’s why Care.com is so gratified to partner with the City of Palo Alto to ensure that the city’s essential workforce can care for its own families while also caring for all of ours.”

The City of Palo Alto and Care.com partnership provides free 90-day premium memberships to Care.com so essential employees can find and be matched with the childcare they need. Go here sign up for the free offer and locate childcare options that fit your needs.

Creating Local Job and Volunteer Opportunities

The partnership between Care.com and the City of Palo Alto also provides local community members the opportunity to give back during this time of need by enrolling to be a caregiver.

“During this public health emergency, we were looking for ways to address a need our employees and others in our community were raising as a critical issue,” said Ed Shikada, city manager of the City of Palo Alto. “Our partnership with Care.com is an opportunity to matching our City employees with the childcare they need and it offers a unique opportunity for both job creation and volunteer options for our community to give back and support our essential workers.”

This new partnership provides job opportunities for the many childcare workers currently in need of work and could create meaningful jobs for our college students now home. For those in our community who are able and looking for ways to show their gratitude for essential workers, this is unique volunteer opportunity.

The Care.com partnership offers a unique option — for wages or on a volunteer basis — for enrolling caregivers to give back. Enrolling caregivers are subject to and must pass Care.com’s extensive background and safety checks.

Go here to learn more about becoming a caregiver.

Other Online Resources During this Time of Need

For the City’s dedicated Coronavirus page, go here.

For more about Care.com go here.

To sign up for the City’s Coronavirus Daily e-newsletter, go here.

To support our local business community during this public health emergency, go here.

If you are an employee of a local business impacted by this public health situation, go here.

If you are in need of community resources, go here.

If you are looking for other volunteer opportunities, go here.