NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She didn’t have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she wasn’t working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she couldn’t work. And without work, she couldn’t afford care.
But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats, she enrolled the three children at Clara’s Little Lambs, a child care center in the Westbank neighborhood of New Orleans. For the first time, she’s earning enough to pay her bills and afford online classes.
“It actually paved the way for me to go to school,” Richard said one morning this spring, after walking the three children to their classrooms. City Seats, she said, “changed my life.”
What's next for Iran after death of its president in crash?
From House Sparrows to Blue Tits: The stunning birds spotted the most often in UK gardens
Piece of 5,800lb battery pallet tossed from NASA's ISS crashes through Florida home
I lifted 200kg weights two days before giving birth
NHS waiting lists fall for fifth month in a row as Rishi Sunak says 'our plan is working'
Struggling Chinese developer Evergrande warns it could run out of money
Tamara Ecclestone is criticised as her daughter Fifi, 10, heads out wearing heavy make
My 'morning sickness' ended up being cancer: Mother
Scottie Scheffler's Louisville court date postponed after arrest during PGA Championship
Who's a clever boy? Dogs excel in different intelligence tasks