Lehigh Valley Children's Centers (LVCC)

The LVCC Team, alongside lawmakers and fellow child care providers took to the capitol as part of Early Childhood Workforce Day. This bipartisan issue is sounding the alarm on shortages in the child care industry and sends the message loud and clear: Quality child care and access to care is crucial for a thriving economy and community.

The Fall Harvest Begins Now 🍠
Master Gardener from Penn State Extension - Lehigh County and LVCC Board Member Patricia Terreros stopped by LVCC Park Avenue to lend a green thumb.👍

Patti taught our preschool and school-age children lessons on plants, gardening, and the source of their favorite vegetables. 🥦

The children grew a greater understanding of nature, nutrition, and responsibility as they will tend to the plant this summer for harvest in the autumn.☀️

🎈 Thank you to all the fathers and grandfathers that attended our Build with Dad event at LVCC Fowler 🏗️

🎉 Flashback Friday 📸
To the Graduating Class of 2026 at LVCC Coaldale. 🎈

☀️ Throwback to Palmerton's Graduation Ceremony. We remember when many of these faces were crawling around the infant classroom and are now on their way to kindergarten. 🥹

☀️ It's been one week since the last day of PA Pre-K Counts at LVCC Palmer. How did the children celebrate their last day? By making their own ice-cream of course!🍦

🎈Today, LVCC South Mountain acted as the host site for a meeting between business leaders, legislators, and early learning advocates who sounded the alarm on the current child care staffing crisis. 🚨

☎️ It was a call to action that child care needs additional assistance in the PA 2026-2027 state budget and urged the General Assembly to act.

It is a crisis that has led to more than 1,500 children in the Lehigh Valley unable to receive care. 🚫

An April 2026 survey conducted by the Start Strong PA Campaign of 1,141 child care providers from across Pennsylvania showed that:

🔴 87% of child care programs reported challenges in recruiting
staff.
🔴 78% are struggling with teacher shortages.

Those shortages are leaving more than ➡️2,600 unfilled positions statewide.

Programs could serve an additional ➡️ 21,917 children if they could recruit and retain the staff they need, and these numbers represent less than 18% of the total open registered programs in Pennsylvania.

Participants Included:
Tim Fallon - Early Learning Investment Commission
Flo Scott - Chair, Women's Business Council Lehigh Valley
Senator Nick Miller
Rep. Mike Schlossberg
Rep. Ana Tiburcio
Advocates from PennAEYC Pennsylvania Association for the Education of Young Children and United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley — all standing together with one message: We cannot wait.
Start Strong PA
Pre-K for PA

🌦️🌦️🌦️
Take us back to last Friday's 🌞🌞🌞 at LVCC Park Avenue's beautiful graduation ceremony.