YMCA child care services close Friday in county
The last large bastion of child care in Butler County will shutter its doors Friday.
While both the Butler County Family YMCA and the Rose E. Schneider YMCA closed for roughly two weeks effective Tuesday, officials said at that time they had every intention of operating all child care sites. But with new guidance from the state, the YMCA will close its child care services at the end of the day Friday.
“We are just following the state’s recommended guidelines,” said Dave Hilliard, the county YMCA’s CEO. “We believe this is the socially responsible thing to do for all involved.”
The YMCA believed earlier that, after Gov. Tom Wolf’s Friday announcement closing all Pennsylvania kindergarten through grade 12 schools and a large number of other child care services also closed, its job within the community was to fill that role for families in need.
“It breaks my heart that we have to close the Y at all,” he said. “Typically when other businesses and school districts are closed down for any reason, like weather or other situations, ... that’s when people typically come to the Y. They need the Y during those times.”
But the COVID-19 outbreak is different than a closure due to weather, Hilliard said. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and the United States, Pennsylvania, Butler County and the City of Butler all declared emergencies or disasters due to the virus.
Because of the virus’ danger, he said, the YMCA made the difficult decision earlier this week to shutter its doors for the next two weeks.
“We thought it was the socially responsible thing to do, to close the Y to keep people from congregating together in the same room,” he said.
But because all schools throughout the state are closed, and some parents may have jobs considered essential and continue to work, some people may have needed to drop their children off at a safe environment while they work. In that sense, Hilliard said, the YMCA wanted to keep fulfilling its role as a community institution.
“We thought there would be a big need for childcare, that parents would need care, so we wanted to be there for them,” he said.
