See text below.
EXCERPTS
Today is another sad day for childcare in our community. Samantha, an energetic, highly educated, caring, nurturing, and extremely talented early childhood educator left her position today at Care to Learn, one of a very few childcare centres in our community, for a job as a tree planter.
Did she leave because she desperately wants to batter and bruise her body planting trees in a buggy, hot climate? Think again. It's because, she, like many other early childhood educators in our country, can no longer afford to work in childcare.
She is a young adult starting off her life, getting married, and thinking about having her own children. How can she afford to live on what our government has deemed, through lack of funding, is an appropriate wage for such a demanding, important, and needed job.
She was willingly, passionately, and expertly helping me raise my daughter, she has a gift. She unfortunately is also the fourth excellent staff that Care to Learn has lost this year.
...
How is this ever going to change if we don't demand change. Enough is enough.
- reprinted from the Nelson Daily News