NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She didn’t have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she wasn’t working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she couldn’t work. And without work, she couldn’t afford care.
But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats, she enrolled the three children at Clara’s Little Lambs, a child care center in the Westbank neighborhood of New Orleans. For the first time, she’s earning enough to pay her bills and afford online classes.
“It actually paved the way for me to go to school,” Richard said one morning this spring, after walking the three children to their classrooms. City Seats, she said, “changed my life.”
Nigella Lawson, 64, reveals she would 'never take Ozempic' as a weight
Sri Lanka to join Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership: president
Italy's fashion brands have Chinese connection
In pics: Aohan Banner in Inner Mongolia builds grass grids for sand control
Eleanor Tomlinson puts on a leggy display in sparkly black minidress as she joins co
Village in Hainan explores new developing model to advance rural revitalization
Jennie Garth recalls the valuable lessons she learned from her late co
Village doctors safeguard health in China's mountainous Guizhou
Flight attendant reveals why plane passengers should NEVER fall asleep before take off
China, South Africa see broad cooperation prospects in automotive industry
Pregnancy app used by the NHS accused of 'imposing gender ideology'
Booming ice and snow economy roars in NE China's Jilin