As part of its good neighborly efforts, East Liberty-based Duolingo Inc. announced plans to make a multi-year commitment of $1 million annually to help increase access to child care centers in Pittsburgh.
For its first year, the "Duolingo Early Learners First" initiative has partnered with nine child care facilities to help fund their operating costs, which the company hopes will lead to expanded capacity, staffing and support for families.
In the future, Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL) said it hopes to fully fund child care costs for families in Pittsburgh as well.
"With this new program, we plan to invest in local child care programs to help them motivate and retain staff, and adopt sustainable business practices," Kendra Ross, head of social impact at Duolingo, said in a prepared statement. "And by helping child care centers cover these operational costs, we will hopefully increase availability to high quality early education for our youngest learners in Pittsburgh."
Sam Dalsimer, global communications director at Duolingo, said the company could not disclose how many years it plans to make this commitment other than noting it will last "for several years." He added that since this first year is serving as an experiment for the company, it will allow Duolingo to gauge how to best deploy this funding to bring about the greatest benefit to those in need of child care and to those who are providing it in the years to come.
The following child care centers will receive up to $80,000 in grant funding to be used for expenses like staff benefits and improvements to facilities:
- Brightside Academy Early Education-East Liberty
- Child’s Way
- Davis Family Childcare
- Eastminster Child Care
- Homewood-Brushton YWCA
- Hope Academy Powered by Hosanna House
- McCoy’s Learning Center LLC
- Mt. Ararat Early Childhood Development Center
- Shady Lane School
Duolingo cited a study from Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, which found that less than 50% of child care centers in Pennsylvania meet standards deemed as "high quality," as part of its call to action for this funding. The company is optimistic this kind of support will improve these standards for local facilities in the coming months and years ahead.
