Caring for the Caregivers

For Tamyka Perine, helping families and childcare providers recover from the May 16 tornado that devastated St. Louis is both a personal and professional calling. As the executive director of the Gateway Early Childhood Alliance, she knows well the childcare provider service gap that already existed for St. Louis families before the tornado. 

“We work to address lack of access to equitable, quality childcare through a series of ways: resourcing providers, advocacy efforts, and educating and working with business communities and policymakers to help them understand that childcare is not a babysitting issue — it is really an economic issue. It’s a workforce issue.”

Before the tornado, Perine says there were more than 29,000 children between the ages of 0 and 5 in the city and county from households at or below the 185% federal poverty level, and of that, 32% of those children were accessing seats in childcare facilities, leaving a gap of 20,025. In the aftermath of the tornado, some 40 childcare providers, both home and childcare centers, have been affected. Some providers sustained more minor damage, such as missing roof shingles, roof leaks, and broken windows, while others have lost everything.

“They’re losing revenue, and a lot of these are also family centers, so as they’re losing their centers, they’re also losing their homes,” Perine says. “One of our providers, an amazing, sweet woman, has been operating for a number of years, and she is a home provider, and there’s another house literally leaning up against her house. So she’s unable to operate. She’s unable to go to her home. So she’s lost her home, she’s lost her business. She’s lost everything.” 

In the days and weeks since the tornado, Perine has helped establish the St. Louis Early Childhood Tornado Response Team to raise money and collect donations to support affected childcare providers.

How to Help

On a warm Wednesday evening just five days after a tornado devastated the St. Louis community, people from across the metro came together under twinkling lights at City Foundry STL to help residents impacted by the storm. As part of the Foundry’s Live Art Market, local musicians and artists Mvstermind and K Kudda Muzic provided the soundtrack, and MADE Makerspace, which sustained damage in the storm, provided art projects for kids.

The open-air event brought out more than 3,500 St. Louisans and raised $15,000 through raffle tickets and artist tips, and another $5,000 from on-site restaurants and bars Expat, None of the Above, and Fordo’s Killer Pizza. Proceeds were evenly distributed among five nonprofits, which either sustained storm damage or have launched rapid recovery response efforts: ForTheCultureSTL, Craft Alliance, MADE, LOVEtheLOU, and the St. Louis Early Childhood Tornado Response Team.

In addition to raising money for these nonprofits, the event served as a donation drive for the St. Louis Early Childhood Tornado Response Team. Kids of all ages helped their parents unload boxes of diapers, baby wipes, toilet paper, formula, non-perishable food and snacks, cleaning supplies, and other essentials for childcare providers affected by the tornado. 

“The public really showed incredible support, dropping off supplies to us. It was overwhelming,” Perine says. “And we distributed those drives to our childcare hubs.” 

The event was the first in a series that will reoccur every Wednesday in June at the circular drive at the Foundry. From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., the St. Louis Early Childhood Tornado Response Team will be collecting donations. The response team has also established donation drop-off locations at four other area locations: Flance Early Learning Center, Hilltop Child Development Center, Baden Christian Child Care Center, and Urban Sprouts Child Development Center.

Current donation needs for childcare providers include diapers and pullups of all sizes, baby wipes, formula (liquid or powder), toilet paper, non-perishable food, gift cards for/grocery stores for perishable foods, and outdoor play equipment and toys.

Perine also encourages people to volunteer with and donate to The People’s Response, a grassroots, community-led rapid response effort helmed by Action St. Louis, ForTheCultureSTL, 4theVille, and Invest STL. In the weeks after the tornado, Perine spent most days volunteering with the group at their hub at the O’Fallon Park Recreation Center YMCA, which collects and distributes supplies to childcare providers.

“The immediate response from the public is amazing, and we’ve had so many people come out and help,” Perine says. “We still need people to keep the momentum going. So continue with donating your time, talent, treasures and providing those resources and funding to help with the childcare community.”

The People’s Response also sends teams of volunteers to help clear debris and clean up nearby homes damaged by the tornado, including former in-home childcare providers. For those who can’t volunteer, The People’s Response accepts donations online.

For Perine, who grew up in the West End neighborhood of St. Louis, reckoning with and recovering from the tornado damage is also deeply personal.

“My family home was right in the middle of the devastation, and so this means something different to me,” she says. “I’m not on the periphery. I’m right in the middle of it in so many ways. My aunt was impacted, because she lives in the area as well. So I’m boots on the ground with my people every day. I would have been here regardless to support them, but being here every day means so much more to me because these people are my family.”

Moving Forward

In addition to the donation drives at the Foundry every Wednesday evening in June, Perine says there are other next steps in development to continue supporting affected childcare providers. The team is already partnering with the IFF (formerly the Illinois Facilities Fund, which helps provide low-interest lending) to identify reputable contractors to help with rebuilding work. In the more immediate term, Perine says there is an urgent need for contractors to help providers rebuild.

“Our next phase that we’re moving into, in the partnership with IFF, will be to get reputable contractors out to help repair centers over the next couple weeks, and really do true assessments for them,” Perine says. “And we’re gonna help fund that with the dollars that are coming in from the public. So all the dollars that the public is giving and donating are going directly into repairing those centers, and going directly to the provider community.”

And beyond repairs, Perine says another key step is identifying new spaces — both residential homes for in-home providers and commercial spaces for centers — for those whose homes and businesses cannot be rebuilt. If home providers have lost their homes, they need help identifying housing, so the St. Louis Early Childhood Tornado Response Team plans to partner with a real estate agent or agents to discuss what is possible.

“So with home-care providers, we have to find some of them new homes,” Perine says. “Those are the next steps: How do we find sustainable housing for (the providers) who are impacted? We’re also helping their employees and their families. And so the next step is really figuring out as a community, what does sustainable housing look like for those impacted by these storms? And that is the thing that we as a community really need to figure out.”

As Perine works to secure long-term recovery plans for the St. Louis families and childcare providers affected by the tornado, she also reflects on how overwhelming the community response has been so far — and emphasizes how important it is for the community to sustain this momentum.

“(Providers are) grateful for the support. It’s been emotional. They’re surprised that the community has cared so much because a lot of them have felt forgotten and underappreciated by the community,” Perine says. “And so to see the community come together for them in this way has been really special and impactful for them.”