Marissa Hernandez is a Des Moines-based Mexican American artist with murals at Conmigo Early Education Center, The Slow Down Coffee Co., Candle Bar DSM and more.
Heidi Leavengood of Ruan Transportation Management Systems, Amy Curtis of the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children, and Kay Stahorn of the Conm
Partnershipâs policy forum focuses on child care challenges
BY MICHAEL CRUMB, Senior Staff Writer Wednesday, February 17, 2021 3:16 PM The struggles of child care in Iowa and bills circulating through the Legislature to address those challenges were the focus of the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s first public policy forum Tuesday.
The discussion, the first of six public policy discussions the Partnership will host in 2021, was moderated by Dave Stone, advocacy officer for the United Way of Central Iowa. Panelists included Claudia Garcia Brown, board president with Conmigo Early Education Center, a bilingual early education center for children ages 1 to 5; Lora Patton, regional director of Child Care Resource and Referral of Central Iowa at Orchard Place; and Mindi Vanden Bosch, of Vermeer, which subsidizes the third-party-operated Yellow Iron Academy to meet the child care needs of its employers and other community members in Pella.