When Beatriz García, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Partnerships at Santa Barbara Foundation, looks back on her childhood, she remembers the long days her parents spent working to make ends meet.
Her mother spent hours in agriculture packing houses, sorting and boxing fresh produce, while her father worked twelve-hour shifts, six days a week.
Most afternoons, Beatriz and her siblings would come home from school just in time to see their mother head out for her evening shift.
But one Sunday, that routine changed. During a church service, an announcement invited parents to learn about opening a licensed child care center from their own homes. Beatriz’s mother, curious and determined, signed up that very day. What began as a simple act of curiosity soon became the opportunity that transformed her family’s life.
Through the licensing program, Beatriz’s mom was able to transform their home into a daycare center.
“We made our family room a little like a daycare with letters on the wall and things like that,” she recalls. “My dad worked on the yard to make it where the kids could ride little bikes. It became a family business.”
The opportunity to build a childcare center opened doors for the García family in ways they never expected.
“This actually created the opportunity for my family to move into the middle class,” Beatriz explains. “So that allowed more income into our house and more time with my mom. One of the results of that, and I will never forget this, was our first computer. More money to buy luxuries created the opportunity for us to have access to the Internet.”
Beatriz’s story is more than a family memory. It embodies why Santa Barbara Foundation continues to invest in childcare today. The García’s family’s experience shows how accessible, home-based childcare can be a lifeline for working parents, a bridge to economic stability, and a catalyst for empowerment, especially for immigrant women.
Through partnerships with Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County, the Child Care Planning Council, and First 5 Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara Foundation is working to ensure that more families have access to the same kind of opportunity Beatriz’s mother once found.
Funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the collaboration launched the Child Care Recovery and Stabilization Initiative. This $1.125 million investment turned a moment of crisis into a movement for change. Over the past two years, this work has transformed childcare across Santa Barbara County by creating new infant and toddler spaces, helping women become licensed providers, and offering professional training and business support for early childhood educators.
Across the county, 1,599 new childcare spaces for infants and toddlers have opened. Ninety-eight new family-based childcare providers, many of them bilingual and bicultural women, have been trained and licensed to open their doors. Another 240 early childhood educators have received professional development, more than 100 of them specializing in infant and toddler care.
Behind every number is a story like Beatriz’s mother’s: a woman building a business and gaining independence, a family finding balance, and a community growing stronger.
By treating childcare as essential community infrastructure, the Santa Barbara Foundation and its partners are creating a lasting impact. They are supporting families, expanding economic opportunities, and strengthening the workforce that makes Santa Barbara County thrive.
As Beatriz’s story reminds us, when families are given the chance to succeed, their communities grow stronger too. The same kind of opportunity that once changed her family’s life is now opening doors for hundreds more across Santa Barbara County, helping parents work, children learn, and women lead.
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