The Pittsford Village Farm took a step forward by partnering with the Rutland County Parent Child Center to create a child care center, part of a larger effort to transform a historic farmhouse centrally located in the town of Pittsford into a thriving community center.
Lorrie Byrom, chair of the Pittsford Village Farm’s Board of Directors, said the board has acquired necessary funding for the project, and the plan is to break ground on the child care center on the first floor of the farmhouse this spring and to open the center next year.
Pittsford Village Farm sought applications from childcare providers before signing a memorandum of understanding in January with Rutland County Parent Child Center. They agreed the latter would operate the childcare facility when construction is completed.
“We ended up choosing the group that had the most experience in order to support our board as we begin this adventure and go down a road of building a child care center out,” said Byrom.
In 2017, a couple in Pittsford acquired and preserved a centrally-located historic farmhouse on 20 acres of land connected to sprawling community trails for use by Pittsford residents for years to come. After holding several town meetings, residents determined a community hub was needed in town and lack of childcare and affordable housing were priorities to address, said Byrom.
Byrom said the Pittsford Village Farm has already created a community garden and an outdoor pavilion and worked with the Pittsford Recreation Department, Maclure Public Library and other community partners to host events such as touch-a-truck for young families and a summer concert program called Tunesdays.
After completing the restoration and renovations on the historic farmhouse, the Pittsford Village Farm will also be the site of a community gathering room and two affordable apartments, Byrom said.
“We went about trying to put together a way to make this wonderful community center while still addressing local and state needs,” Byrom said. “We’re starting with the child care center, to get that piece in place.”
READ MORE
Adding child care capacity
The child care center in the Pittsford Village Farm will serve 30 children, including spots for eight infants, 10 toddlers and 12 preschoolers, and will add capacity to serve families in the region, said Stephanie Carvey, co-executive director of the Rutland County Parent Child Center.
The Rutland County Parent Child Center currently has locations in Rutland City and Brandon, but there is still “an extremely large wait list” for families in the region looking for care, Carvey said.
“It’s a big gap between the Rutland city families that we service and our Brandon families that we service,” Carvey said. “It’s not even going to just help families who are in Pittsford itself. It should help families who live closer to Pittsford to get the care that they need for their kids.”
According to a report by the organization Let’s Grow Kids, access to regulated child care for infants, toddlers and preschoolers in Rutland County all decreased between 2022 and 2024.
But, since the landmark child care law, Act 76, started rolling out, more child care centers have opened than closed in each quarter of 2024, which is the first time this has happened since 2018, according to Noah Futterman, communication’s director for Let’s Grow Kids.
Carvey said Act 76 has been crucial for creating more child care centers like at the Pittsford Village Farm and helping families afford quality child care in Rutland county. She said the Rutland County Parent Child Center is looking to receive funding through a Make Way for Kids grant to construct an outdoor space area at the Pittsford Village Farm.
The outdoor recreation on the Pittsford Village Farm property will help enhance children’s opportunities to learn and explore, Carvey said.
“Our organization is always trying to tie in nature in some way, shape or form,” Carvey said. “I’m really looking forward to just really being able to harness that opportunity to bring kids outside.”
A downtown solution
Erin Roche, Vermont director of First Children‘s Finance, said her organization helped craft the Pittsford Village Farm’s request for proposal for the child care center and awarded the Pittsford Village Farm a Vermont Planning Grant in 2024.
Roche said the community center project stood out because of its location and connection to a small town, adjacent to Kamuda’s Country Market and Maclure Public Library, and right off the highway cutting through the town of Pittsford.
“You don’t often see child care as part of a downtown solution,” Roche said. “I feel like the sort of bigger project that they have envisioned really does a lot to support that kind of downtown village feel to Pittsford.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Pittsford Village Farm makes headway on childcare center, part of larger community center effort.