Building the Infrastructure of Care: How Saline County is Reimagining Child Care Through Collaboration, Trust, and Community Investment 

This blog post is a featured business case study. To read more stories of business contributions to child care, check out the Case Study section of our website.

To learn more about the Child Care Community Champion Awards and the four pillars of recognition, check out this resource from Child Care Aware of Kansas.  

In Saline County, Kansas, the story of early childhood systems change does not begin with a single program or policy announcement. It begins, instead, with a long table, a series of unfinished conversations, and a community that refused to stop asking what it would take to make child care work—not just for families, but for the broader economic and social fabric of the region. 

Today, that work is embodied in the Early Childcare Initiative led through Salina Area United Way, under the direction of Early Childcare Initiative Director Michelle Groopman and Finance Director Levi Holcom. It is a model built not on quick fixes, but on years of coalition-building, patient development of trust, and a willingness to confront the reality that child care is not a peripheral issue, but that it is infrastructure. 

That approach is part of what led Saline County’s Early Childcare Initiative to be recognized with Child Care Aware of Kansas’s Child Care Community Champion Award, honoring communities that exemplify strong collaboration across four pillars of work: Child Care Impact Partnership, No Barriers Bright Futures, Child Care Capacity Building, and Backbone Support Infrastructure. This coalition, for all the work they have done and continue to do, are being honored and celebrated for their achievements in all four pillars.  

Within Saline County, however, the recognition is not the story. The story is what made it possible. 

From Table to County-Wide Initiative 

The roots of the Early Childcare Initiative stretch back more than a decade. Around 2012, when tobacco settlement funding streams were reduced, a group of local stakeholders came together in Saline County to ask a foundational question: What happens next? 

What followed was a coalition table—an evolving group of educators, nonprofit leaders, economic development partners, and community members—who met consistently for years with a shared concern about child care availability and affordability.  

Yet, despite the ongoing conversations, progress remained limited. For nearly a decade, the group wrestled with a familiar challenge in community systems work: alignment without implementation. “From 2012 to about 2022, nothing was happening,” Groopman reflected. “There were people at the table trying to bring solutions forward, but nothing was really moving.” 

That changed in 2022, when the coalition made a pivotal decision: If the work was going to move forward, it needed an anchor organization. It needed someone responsible for carrying it beyond discussion and into execution. Salina Area United Way was selected to step into that role. 

The Early Childcare Initiative formally launched in late 2022 and early 2023, with initial catalytic support from the Earl Bane Foundation, which provided funding to establish the Early Childcare Initiative Director position within the organization. From there, the initiative began to take shape under Groopman’s leadership, building on earlier groundwork laid by Christina Small, now executive director. 

What emerged was a coordinated strategy to address child care supply, workforce challenges, affordability, and system navigation simultaneously. 

A Crisis of Child Care and Infrastructure 

When the initiative began digging into local conditions, the scope of the challenge quickly became apparent. In Saline County, like many communities across Kansas, child care shortages were not abstract. They were structural constraints affecting workforce participation, business operations, and household stability. 

Groopman described early findings that revealed significant wage disparities in the sector, including providers with advanced degrees earning wages as low as $12 per hour. At the same time, nonprofit child care centers were reporting more than 30 open positions, with persistent staffing shortages limiting their ability to expand capacity. 

Within just the first two years of targeted investment and grant cycles, those numbers shifted dramatically from more than 30 openings down to roughly 15, driven in part by expansion at local centers such as Love and Learn. The most important insight was not just the number of available slots, however. It was what those shortages were doing to the broader economy. 

As Holcom noted, child care gaps were directly reducing workforce participation. Parents were being forced to stay home not by choice, but by lack of access. “It became clear the economic force was down because people were having to stay home instead of work for child care,” he said. 

That realization reframed the initiative’s purpose: Child care was so much larger than a family service issue. It was a workforce and economic development issue. 

Building the Ecosystem Around Child Care 

From its earliest days, the Early Childcare Initiative has relied on a broad coalition of partners. Salina Area United Way has served as the backbone organization, but the system itself has been built through interdependence across sectors.  

Key partners include the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, economic development leadership including Mitch Robinson, philanthropic support from the Earl Bane Foundation, and private sector investment from organizations such as Great Plains Manufacturing, which contributes approximately $75,000 annually as a major anchor donor. Groopman described Great Plains as a foundational “diamond donor,” one of the first major business investments in the initiative. Their involvement signaled a shift in how businesses in the region viewed child care as a workforce necessity. 

At the same time, the initiative has been supported by smaller private donors—many of whom choose to remain anonymous—as well as contributions from statewide partners including Child Care Aware of Kansas, which itself contributed to early funding structures supporting the initiative. This network of support reflects one of the initiative’s defining characteristics: child care as a shared responsibility across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. 

Building Trust Where It Did Not Exist 

While funding and partnerships helped launch programming, implementation required something more difficult: trust. A central focus of the initiative has been supporting in-home child care providers. This, the team said, is an essential part of the county’s child care ecosystem that had historically felt overlooked or unsupported. 

Groopman described the early stages of engagement with in-home child care providers as cautious and uncertain. Many child care providers were skeptical that funding opportunities would actually materialize. Others had experienced long periods of exclusion from formal support systems. 

“There was a lot of, ‘This isn’t real, this won’t happen,’” she recalled. “People were calling asking when checks would arrive, if they were real, if it was actually going to happen.” The skepticism was not unfounded. For many child care providers, prior experiences had reinforced a sense of invisibility within the broader system. 

To address that, the Early Childcare Initiative leaned heavily into relationship-building by joining provider communication channels, engaging in informal conversations, and ensuring information was accessible in multiple formats, from digital applications to mailed and in-person options. Over time, that consistency began to shift perceptions. 

What started as hesitation slowly transformed into participation, as child care providers saw that grants, wage supplements, and support programs were not hypothetical promises—they were operational realities. That trust-building process became one of the most important outcomes of the initiative itself. 

The Complexity of Keeping Promises 

The Early Childcare Initiative launched multiple targeted funding streams designed to address different parts of the system simultaneously. These included wage supplement grants, non-traditional hours support, wellness-related benefits such as gym memberships, and bookkeeping and financial management assistance for child care providers. 

While uptake varied across programs, the intent was consistent: reduce barriers that prevent child care providers from sustaining their businesses. Holcom noted that early funding rounds included significant allocations, including more than $87,000 directed toward in-home child care providers in one of the first cycles alone, with additional investments layered on top through other supports. 

However, one of the most revealing moments came when child care providers discovered they could have applied for multiple types of assistance, as many had assumed they were limited to just one. That misunderstanding underscored a deeper issue: Systems designed to help are only effective if communities believe they are accessible. 

“We had child care providers saying, ‘No one ever thinks of us,’” Groopman recalled. “And I had to explain… this is literally what we are here to do.” The moment highlighted a core tension in the work. They realized that implementation is not just about funding availability, but about communication, clarity, and sustained engagement. 

A System Built on Momentum 

Despite measurable progress—including expanded child care slots, increased funding deployment, and growing business engagement—both Groopman and Holcom resist the idea that the work has reached a “finished” stage. 

For Holcom, there is no moment where the initiative “clicked.” Instead, there is ongoing motion. “I don’t think we’ve had that moment yet,” he said. “We’re still in the grind. We’re still trying to build.” 

That mindset has shaped how the initiative approaches planning. Rather than treating success as a fixed endpoint, the team continuously evaluates what comes next, including potential expansion targets, new funding structures, and deeper integration with business-sponsored care models. 

The Vision 

If there is one shared vision that emerges most clearly from the initiative, it is the development of a centralized community resource hub. For Groopman, the idea is simple but transformative: a system that connects families not only to child care, but to housing support, utility assistance, food resources, and other forms of stabilization. 

That vision comes directly from lived experience. In her role at United Way, Groopman receives more than 20 calls per day from individuals facing housing instability, utility shutoffs, and food insecurity. “Child care is not separate from those issues,” she explained. “It’s all connected.” 

Holcom echoed that perspective, noting that child care access sits at the center of a cycle that includes employment, income stability, and household security. Without child care, families cannot work consistently. Without work, financial instability deepens. And without stability, access to child care becomes even more difficult. 

The proposed resource hub aims to interrupt that cycle by creating a single point of connection for multiple systems of support. 

Why Child Care Matters Beyond Child Care 

When asked what they would want skeptics to understand about child care investment, both Groopman and Holcom offered a consistent message: Child care is foundational infrastructure. 

“It makes the world go round,” Groopman said plainly. “Without child care, there is no workforce.” Holcom extended that framing further, describing child care as a structural requirement for economic stability. “Child care is workforce infrastructure,” he said. “Without reliable child care, parents can’t work consistently, and businesses can’t stay fully staffed.” 

The impact extends beyond economics, however. Groopman emphasized the importance of early literacy, consistent care environments, and developmental stability in the earliest years of life. Through programs such as Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and local early literacy initiatives, the initiative connects child care to long-term educational outcomes. 

Underlying the initiative is a clear belief that investing in early childhood is investing in the future workforce. It is also a significant investment in the cognitive and social development of children during their most formative years. 

Looking Ahead 

As Saline County looks toward the future, the Early Childcare Initiative is focused on expansion, both in funding and in imagination. Groopman described ongoing conversations with economic development leaders and donors about scaling investment, including the possibility of increasing annual funding targets and expanding business-sponsored child care models. 

One concept under discussion includes on-site child care units at manufacturing facilities, reflecting growing interest from businesses in integrating child care directly into workplace infrastructure. Holcom added that emerging digital systems may play a role in connecting families to a broader network of services, creating a free community platform for referrals and resource navigation. 

The goal is not just expansion for its own sake, but integration. This coalition is dedicated to ensuring that child care, housing, financial support, and workforce development systems operate in alignment rather than isolation. 

The Meaning of Recognition 

Within this broader context, the Child Care Community Champion Award serves as a reflection of momentum already underway. The award recognizes Saline County’s alignment with four key achievements: partnership, accessibility, capacity building, and child care as infrastructure. In practice, however,those pillars already describe the work the initiative has been doing since its earliest days. 

Still, for Groopman, the recognition carries personal meaning beyond validation—as affirmation that sustained collaboration can produce tangible change. More importantly, it reflects something the team has worked intentionally to build: a sense of shared responsibility for children, families, and the systems that support them. 

As Groopman put it, “It’s about knowing that [child care] providers feel seen, families have more options than they did before, and the community has decided this matters.” 

In Saline County, child care is no longer treated as an isolated challenge. It is part of a larger system being actively built through one relationship, one investment, and one conversation at a time. And while the work is far from finished, it is undeniably in motion.