Inside a sanctuary at the Unity of Faith Worship Center in Rocky Mount on Thursday, several Edgecombe County child care providers stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle with linked hands, closed their eyes and turned their heads to the floor.
And they prayed.
The group of women prayed for strength and guidance as they fight to return subsidized child care services to more than 500 children throughout the county.
Then they prayed for the mothers who have had to make last-minute adjustments to survive in recent weeks. They specifically prayed for a Tarboro woman who had to send her son to stay with family in Georgia so that she could keep her job. They prayed for a Rocky Mount woman, who last week quit her job and reapplied for state welfare funding after more than three years off the program.
And the group of women prayed for dozens of young children who are being left home alone each day.
In late January, Edgecombe County Social Services announced that the county needed to raise about $900,000 to keep from cutting more than 500 children from its subsidized child care program.
The county received less state money than expected, officials said, and no longer could afford to pay for services for nearly 1,000 children in low-income households. The cuts went into effect Feb. 1.
In the days that followed, Linda Knight, director of the Think & Grow Child Care Center in Tarboro, contacted as many county child care providers as she could and organized a coalition to raise money and provide support.
"We know we are hoping for a big thing with this fundraising effort," Knight said to the group of women Thursday. "We're thankful for whatever we get. But we're not going to downplay this or underestimate this community's ability to raise money."
Children and parents weren't the only ones affected by the day care cuts. Knight's center, as was the case with most day care providers, lost about half its children because of the funding cuts. Her employees' hours have been cut drastically as a result.
"We should probably be laying off employees, but we don't want to," said the Rev. Shirley Hill, director of Learning Stones Child Care in Tarboro. "We're doing what social services did. We're playing the hope game. We're hoping to wait this out and get the funding. We don't want to lay anybody off."
The group of child care providers, which has met three times since January, has begun circulating a petition that Knight intends to present during the next N.C. Department of Child Development meeting. A letter pleading for funding also is being passed throughout the county.
"This child care crisis has become everyone's concern, and together we have to rectify this immediate crisis and plan how to prevent its reoccurrence," Knight wrote in the letter.