Alana is a student in the Elaine Clark Center’s Ladybug pre-school classroom. After four years at the center, we are her normal. She participates every day in classroom activities and interacts with her peers, and each week she receives multiple physical, hearing, speech and vision therapies. With her needs for therapy and special nursing care, it’s important that Alana attends the ECC over a typical center. The trained staff offer her mom, Nicole, “peace of mind” while she works every day to take care of Alana and her two siblings.

​

“Being that I’m divorced and there’s one income coming in...it helps to have a scholarship to help financially cover the cost of her care,” she says. “Without that scholarship, it would be a hardship for me to do that.”

​

With the coronavirus pandemic, Alana hasn’t received most of her therapies, including physical, which her mom denotes a “critical therapy” because her “main condition” is cerebral palsy. While they have enjoyed more time together as a family, Nicole knows bridging Alana’s gap in programming and returning to the center is important for her development.

​

“It’s been a lifesaver if you have a special needs child, especially like Alana…[at ECC] I know she’s going to be taken care of and in good hands.”