photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The Community Children's Center's Early Childhood Community Center will eventually be located at 346 Maine St., currently the Medical Arts Building & Pharmacy.

A Lawrence nonprofit’s project to bolster early-childhood education in Douglas County has received a substantial boost: a nearly $5 million grant from the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund.

The Community Children’s Center announced in a press release Monday that it has been awarded $4.9 million through KCCTF’s Capital Projects Fund Accelerator, a program that is intended to help construct spaces designed to provide a community-driven, holistic approach to meeting the needs of Kansas families with young children. The grant funding will go toward developing the nonprofit’s Early Childhood Community Center, which will be home to a licensed child care facility serving 140 children that is slated to open in 2024.

As the Journal-World has reported, renovation work has been in progress at the future home of the Early Childhood Community Center — the Medical Arts Building & Pharmacy at 346 Maine St. — since January. As of earlier this summer, the nonprofit was still waiting for further funding assistance to be made available that would allow it to advance its interior renovation work.

“This grant isn’t just an investment in a building,” Kim Polson, the executive director of the Community Children’s Center, said in the release. “It’s about creating early childhood safety to ensure all Douglas County children have an equitable start in life. The model offered at 346 Maine St. will create ripples across our community to strengthen the early childhood infrastructure.”

The project is, in part, intended to fill existing gaps in the community’s capacity for licensed early-childhood care by providing daytime, overnight and weekend care for infants and toddlers up to 24 months old. But the Early Childhood Community Center will also feature elements like an indoor play area and learning space, a family resource center providing education and wrap-around services, and a support system for other early-childhood professionals.

photo by: Community Children’s Center

This rendering shows what one of the playrooms at 346 Maine St. should look like once renovated.

The Community Children’s Center had to show that to qualify for the grant, according to the release. Along with illustrating how it would increase the number of high-quality child care slots in the community, the nonprofit also had to demonstrate how the project would help parents return to work, provide educational opportunities for children and early-childhood professionals, provide opportunities for health monitoring and increase broadband access.

“This substantial grant underscores the collective recognition and need for a comprehensive approach to early childhood education and care in our community,” the release reads.