Supporters of Tide Point Day Care and Early Education Center talk about the caring staff, the convenient waterfront location and video cameras that allow them to log on at work and watch their children making art projects.
The large center, which serves 180 children and is one of the few programs that accepts infants as young as 6 weeks old, stays open late and is a short drive from downtown Baltimore.
So some parents were teary-eyed to learn at a Tuesday night meeting that the center is closing for good this summer because it is not fulfilling its mission of serving low-income families. Many parents spent part of yesterday frantically making calls and otherwise scrambling to find alternatives and wondering how it could be that such a popular and needed program is shutting down.
"We were floored that there would be such a beautiful facility with such great teachers and ... waiting lists for people to get in, and that would all be taken away," said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, who waited nine months to get her son into the program. "I've lived in Baltimore since '95 and the idea that there aren't enough low-income people here ... it still boggles the mind."
Gronvall took time off from work yesterday to visit another center and put down a deposit.
The Board of Child Care of the United Methodist Church, the nonprofit that started the Tide Point program seven years ago, always intended for it to have a mix of privately paying clients - who pay as much as $1,300 a month for infant care - as well as children from low-income families who pay using state vouchers, said Tom Curcio, CEO of the organization. But currently, only 22 of the center's families use vouchers, a number the board felt was too low.
"We weren't meeting our mission," Curcio said. "It's a very disappointing decision and a difficult decision, but a reasonable decision."
Funds set aside for the Tide Point program will be used instead to operate other programs, including a new group home and shelter on the Eastern Shore, Curcio said.
It's unclear why the center wasn't able to recruit enough low-income families. Though the center offered transportation, the location was inconvenient for some potential families, Curcio said.
As of a fall count, 24,240 children statewide are eligible for vouchers; 7,554 of those children live in Baltimore, said Rolf Grafwallner, assistant state superintendent for the Division of Early Childhood Development at the Department of Education.
The situation for parents looking for child care downtown is "pretty dismal," said Margo Stipes, executive director of Downtown Baltimore Child Care, whose office spent much of the day fielding calls from panicked parents. There are a handful, including her nonprofit center, but many have waiting lists - especially for infants, she said.
Some parents are banding together in hopes of saving the center - possibly by finding another operator to take over the 22,000-square-foot space. Others, like Gronvall, are trying to grab the few spaces available elsewhere or are looking into nanny shares.
But they're not happy. Many had been warned about the possibility of the closing, but Gronvall, whose son has been there since September, had no idea.
"He's attached to people; he smiles when he sees his teachers," she said. "It's so sad. ... It's crazy."
rona.marech@baltsun.com