One of the reasons Marion County has trouble attracting new businesses and workers is due to a lack of child care; and a series of meetings over the next few weeks will be devoted to tackling that problem.

The Marion County Development Commission and the PACE Alliance are joining forces to sponsor the strategic planning meetings with their various partners; they will address the need for more child care providers, as a way to draw interest by companies and individuals in relocating to the area.

Carla Eysink from the MCDC tells KNIA/KRLS News the current child care providers are doing an excellent job, but they need quantity on top of quality. And she notes there are some types of specialized child care which workers would be looking for, but local vendors don’t offer.

“There’s the time constraints as far as weekends and evenings; there’s also sick care, which is another issue,” Eysink says. “Infant care is another issue…people that take infants, not all providers want to take on infants. And so there’s a lot of different gaps that we hope the data – I haven’t seen the data yet – but we hope the data will help us identify what are those gaps.”

The first set of meetings will be held on Tuesday, January 8th from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at the Marion County Office Building at 3014 East Main Street in Knoxville; and on Wednesday, January 9th from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the Graham Conference Center, at Central College in Pella.

Four sets of meetings will be held at these same sites during January and February; the next ones in Knoxville will be on January 22nd, January 29th and February 12th, all from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. The ones in Pella will take place on January 23rd, January 30th and February 13th, each from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m.

A final report will be issued in March.