It looked like business as usual at the Boys & Girls Clubs site in Huntington Beach. Despite the shuttering of schools this week due to the coronavirus, children chatted and laughed together Thursday morning, March 19, as they drew pictures or cut construction paper into shapes.
At second glance, however, another story materialized. The kids sat only two or three at a table, six feet apart. Per the term du jour, they practiced “social distancing.”
“It’s working pretty well,” said Tanya Hoxsie, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valley. “There’s room to spread out. We have the capacity and expertise to do it safely.”
The arrangement may be imperfect but it is also imperative. These are the children of first responders – society’s most important workers, especially during a pandemic.
While others might hunker down and telecommute, medical personnel do not have the luxury of phoning in their jobs. Yet like many parents suddenly thrust into new routines, nurses, too, have children to consider.
In a hastily stitched together partnership, hospital chain MemorialCare and two Southern California Boys & Girls Clubs have joined to provide childcare to those boots-on-the-ground employees.
“It started with us contacting the hospital when we were looking for an infrared thermometer so we could scan kids,” Hoxsie said. “The talk evolved into, ‘Can you help us with the children of our staff?’ Ten minutes later, we had a deal.”
With two closed, five of Huntington Valley’s seven facilities in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley now take in about 200 kids from preschool to eighth grade.
There, lab technicians and RNs drop off youngsters on the way to Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley or Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills.
Meanwhile, Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach welcomes the children of employees at nearby hospitals Long Beach Memorial and Miller’s Children’s. It has 11 locations, most of them on school campuses that are now off-limits. Long Beach left in operation one center, on Del Amo Boulevard near Atlantic Avenue.
MemorialCare is picking up the $115-per-week tab for its employees.
“When I learned schools were closing, my biggest concern became childcare,” said Milena Padilla, a medical assistant for Orange Coast. “I’m a single mom, and my family members all work. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
But that afternoon, Friday, March 13, Padilla learned that the Boys & Girls Kingston Branch would open its doors from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Her son Jovani, 8, who attends Tamura Elementary, was already enrolled at the Fountain Valley site.
“I am so relieved and grateful to receive this support from MemorialCare and the Boys & Girls Clubs,” Padilla said.
Boys & Girls Clubs of Garden Grove is also operating its preschool families deemed in critical need.
Working parents in other areas have not been as lucky. The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Harbor Area, for instance, has suspended all of its in-person operations, in line with Los Angeles Unified School District’s decision to close its campuses.
Long Beach and Huntington Valley clubs continue to take “regular clients” whose parents work jobs officially deemed essential – public safety officers, UPS drivers, mail deliverers, grocery store clerks.
At both locations, children are greeted with thermometers for temperature checks and wipes for hand sanitation. Parents are not allowed inside.
On a daily basis in normal times, Huntington Valley and Long Beach each assist about 1,000 kids, most of them from lower-income families. But numbers have dwindled dramatically with parents staying home – either out of choice or because their jobs in the service industry were impacted by closures.
This week, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach looked after about 60 children daily – half belonging to MemorialCare employees. CEO Don Rodriguez expects an uptick as parents make sense of their situations and MemorialCare advertises the opportunity.
“We’re hoping we can keep this going for the duration of the crisis,” Rodriguez said. “These hospital employees need us, and we need them.”