Innovative new American company connects stay-at-home parents with the ones who seek childcare

The United States is facing an increasing rate of childcare crisis lately. The issue is not only threatening the youth's future but also hindering the employment and educational advancement of the American workforce. It has not only become a problem for individual parents or families but it is also affecting the economy and communities. However, an innovative organization named The June Care Company has seemingly solved this common headache of every working parent.

This company is one of the many start-ups that was launched in recent years and has become increasingly popular among parents who were struggling to find reliable and affordable childcare services. According to an interview with Good Morning America, Whitney Bogan, a labor and delivery nurse from San Diego, routinely drops her youngest son named Liam at this non-traditional daycare started by The June Care Company.

Unlike other daycare facilities, this mom drops her kid at the home of a fellow stay-at-home mother whom Bogan connected through the June Care website. Michelle Espinoza takes care of Bogan's son Liam as well as her own two children. "Liam is about the same age as my son," Espinoza told the outlet. "They've become friends and I consider them almost like brothers." "I don't work Monday through Friday, 8 to 5," Bogan told GMA. "So it was really important for me to get good value care when I needed it, with somebody that I trusted."

The June Care Company is the brainchild of a mom, Gretchen Salyer. Salyer is a mother to three children who got the idea to start this company amidst the COVID pandemic when she noticed how the childcare facilities for herself and her fellow mothers "disappeared" when they needed them the most. Women from ages 25 to 44 were quitting their jobs to care for their children, per the reports of the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve.

"I started to just organize local child care swaps for myself for my community so that we would have reliable child care," Salyer told the outlet. Now, The June Care Hosts are verified by the website with their background thoroughly checked and they set their own rates to charge the mothers who need childcare facilities. Lately, more than half of families in America are facing this increasing childcare crisis where many kids under the age of 5 have either no child care or extremely limited childcare options, as per the reports of Child Care Aware.

"Childcare businesses are going to be put in a position of having to either raise fees on parents or lower the wages of their childcare teachers. That loss of funding brings with it the potential for many American families to lose access to child care." Susan Gale Perry, CEO of Child Care Aware of America told GMA. The childcare industry reportedly drew in $1.4 billion in venture capital funding in 2021 which is more than what they earned in the previous four years combined. 

"We are tapping into the underutilized resource of care work that's already happening in millions of homes across the country, which enables income opportunities for parents who need to work outside the home," Salyer further added to the outlet. "But it also now affords stay-at-home parents an opportunity to earn income." Salyer also noted that the $50 billion in relief funding that childcare programs received from the federal government post-pandemic is about to expire in September. Meanwhile, many other initiatives like The June Care Company are stepping in to provide solutions to this childcare crisis in the country.