Lindy describes herself as a struggling mom and her household’s only breadwinner.
“I didn’t know how I was going to get my girls in daycare,” she explained.
A coworker told her that her employer offers a program that helps parents afford daycare and pay for much of it. Lindy applied and received a list of daycare centers in her area. One is within walking distance of her house.
“So it’s perfect,” Lindy said. “It has relieved so much stress knowing I don’t have to worry about somebody picking up my girls on this awkward schedule I have here at the airport, so I know they’re always taken care of.”
For most of us, airports generate images of pulling up to curbs, unloading luggage, figuring out self check-in machines, reviewing a list of departure times and watching planes take off and arrive. Even if you’re not a frequent traveler, imagine visiting the airport nearly every day. At the airport, some of the people you see riding escalators or the Sky Train are not headed out of town.
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport employs more than 57,000 people. During a video production project, it was fun for us to stand on the airfield and watch planes up close.
However, we also interviewed several employees who are parents and are taking part in an important program at the city’s airports called the City of Phoenix Airport Worker Child Care Scholarship Program. The program assists airport workers who are parents with finding affordable childcare.
“It’s warming to know that my kid isn’t just going to any place,” Lindy said. “No random person is watching my kids. It’s a good school that they’re going to. It’s honestly the greatest gift we’ve had in our family just knowing that it’s not something I have to sacrifice food for childcare. I can have both and they’re in a good place. It really is a weight lifted off my shoulders.”
Monique, another airport employee, told us the program couldn’t have come at a better time.
“I had just had my son and nobody else was willing to watch my child and childcare is astronomical as far as prices, and I was really stressing about coming to work off of maternity leave and who I was going to trust my child to because everything I was looking at was out of my budget for sure,” she told us. “Nobody wants to just leave their child with just anybody.”
Monique began to get emotional.
“Because it was really stressful and I didn’t want to give up my job for my son. It was a blessing. The biggest blessing.”
During the video shoot, we followed Rachael walking through the airport with her son, who wanted to ride the train.
“I applied right away because it’s something that I needed desperately at the time,” said the airport employee. “It was just something that came at the right time for me, something that I really needed. For me, it was a life saver. Childcare is very expensive now and I honestly could not afford it on my own and so it’s helped me tremendously.”
This blog is HI (Human Intelligence) generated-content.
