One Step Forward

When it comes to child care and providing safe — and, ideally, enriching — activities for their children, working parents on the East End often hit a wall.

School districts are far more generous with vacation time than most private employers, which leaves many parents needing affordable child care during school holidays simply to be able to show up for their jobs. Add the fact that a lot of families from out of town visit the East End precisely when children are out of school — in the summer and on weekends in particular — and what you get are often wildly expensive camps and other programs geared to the children of vacationing second-home owners, rather than people who work and live here year round.

With luck, a new alliance between two nonprofit organizations, Project Most and Neighborhood House in East Hampton, will offer at least a little bit of a correction to the child care equation. Project Most, which has hosted affordable after-school programs at the Springs School and at the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton for many years, just last week started a new Saturday program as well, in a space at Neighborhood House.

The added space does more than allow Project Most to offer half- and full-day programs on Saturdays and expand its after-school options. It also makes it possible to open some of Project Most’s programs to children living outside the Springs and East Hampton school districts — even perhaps to day camps during the summer.

Whether it’s a baby step or something bigger, the new partnership is a step in the right direction. It should be most welcome news to working parents, not to mention their employers.