CPO to launch early childhood hub as one-stop shop for families

Community Partnership of the Ozarks Inc. announced it is partnering with the Darr Family Foundation to launch an early childhood hub at the O’Reilly Center for Hope.

CPO announced the partnership last week on Facebook. The hub is slated to launch this summer and will offer one-stop support for families with children aged prenatal to school age, the announcement states. Plans call for it to serve as a central access point for programs that strengthen families and foster community resilience, according to the agency.

The change transitions the O’Reilly Center for Hope, which CPO opened in 2020 at the former Pepperdine Elementary School at 1518 E. Dale St., back to its educational roots. The hub is intended as a place families can find support and services, as well as on-site parent education, expansion of agency partnerships for families and a resource to connect parents with child care providers.

Meanwhile, services that had been offered to members of the unsheltered community at the O’Reilly Center for Hope are being shifted to the former headquarters of Legal Services of Southern Missouri, a 10,000-square-foot building at 809 N. Campbell St. that CPO purchased last year, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

That building does not yet have a name, according to Melody Shuck, vice president for communications for the organization, though it is tentatively being called New Day .

Amanda Coleman, CPO’s vice president of early childhood and family development, said the early childhood hub at the O’Reilly Center for Hope will provide resources for families and child care providers alike.

“We want to make sure that the hub provides an opportunity for families to walk in to receive services and support, but we also want child care providers to be able to come into that building for training, guidance and connections,” she said.

SBJ previously reported on a CPO effort to launch a community child care exchange, which would coordinate the contributions of child care costs by an employee, an employer and the state of Missouri. It’s a model that has been successful in other states, like Michigan and Kentucky, and that Show Me State leaders are exploring.

Coleman said the hub is a separate but related effort.

“If we weren’t moving into the O’Reilly Center, the exchange could still happen, and vice versa,” she said. “A lot of the projects we are working on will eventually align together.”

Collaboration is possibly the biggest piece of the child care puzzle, according to Coleman. She noted a lot of that already happens at the O’Reilly Center for Hope, but the hub will provide more of an early childhood and family focus.

“We’re really creating a landing spot for families that are looking for resources – where they feel welcomed and connected,” she said. “We’re excited that we are working with many of the same partners in a different program, and we’re inviting new partners to come to the table.”

Heather Zoromski, executive director of the Darr Family Foundation, said her organization is excited to partner with CPO on the hub project, and she noted that early childhood education has been central to the mission of the foundation since it began 2002.

“By providing all services under one roof at the O’Reilly Center for Hope, we will be able to improve access to child care, health care, parent education, case management, housing and more for our most vulnerable families,” she said in a news release. “The hub will also provide an unparalleled opportunity to strengthen the referral network between partner agencies housed on-site.”

The service transition will happen first, after which larger renovation and enhancement projects for the former school building will follow, according to the announcement, which notes that this will help to ensure the space continues to grow and evolve to meet the needs of the families it serves.

An example of an existing partner agency is the Missouri Job Center, Coleman said. That partner agency will still be on-site to provide resources to parents who are looking for jobs or working on their employability skills.

She is also eager to welcome new partners, specifically those that offer services to young and school-age children.

Coleman said she is excited to offer an array of parent cafes, parent programing and education classes at the center, with no income requirement.

“It will be open to any parent that is seeking connection and resources,” she said. “If I were a younger individual that didn’t have a lot of support and I learned that I was pregnant, I would want our community to say, ‘You should go to the O’Reilly Center for Hope to get connected.’”

The New Day center, a purpose-driven day center and agency hub paid for through $1.7 million in city of Springfield-allocated American Rescue Plan Act funds, was previously announced as having a planned opening in the spring.

Child care has been identified as a key need of the workforce in both Missouri and Springfield, according to past reporting. The 2024 Springfield Community Focus Report identified access to child care as a continuing red flag, with a shortage of almost 2,000 infant and toddler spots and 800 spots for Head Start- and Early Head Start-eligible children. On average, Springfield families spend a quarter of their income on child care expenses, the report states.