HOLYOKE — Holyoke Community College (HCC) has been awarded a $245,000 grant from the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation to add additional staff and evening hours to its Itsy Bitsy Child Watch program.

The grant will pay for the hiring of two more staff workers (one full-time and one part-time). That will allow the child watch center to increase capacity by operating a second classroom during its busiest daytime hours and also by adding care hours in the evenings for students who take classes at night.

Itsy Bitsy Child Watch is a free center on HCC’s main campus for parents in need of short-term childcare while they attend class, study, or meet with tutors and advisers. It opened as a pilot program in the fall of 2022 and was so successful, it quickly reached capacity in its original location. In September 2025, the child watch center opened in a larger, newly renovated space funded by a previous $600,000 grant from the Davis Foundation.

“At the Davis Foundation, we have five priorities: we fund early childhood, early literacy, the K-16 pathway, youth development, and economic mobility,” Executive Director Kiley O’Meara said at the grand reopening celebration for the center. “So, it’s everything that you all are doing here, every day. Really, every college needs this, and we’re just thrilled to be a part of it.”

The new Itsy Bitsy Child Watch Center, located on the second floor of the Frost Building, roughly doubled the capacity of children it can serve at any given time, from 10 to 19. It has two full classrooms for different age groups, a dedicated children’s bathroom, an office, an adjoining gross motor skills room, and an expanded kitchenette with a dishwasher and full-size refrigerator.

“It’s a beautiful space, but it isn’t just about square footage,” HCC President George Timmons said. “This is about possibility and removing barriers. This is about saying to student parents, ‘we see you, we support you, and we want you to get to the finish line.’”

According to Kimm Quinlan, HCC’s director of Early Childhood Initiatives, student parents who use the child watch service have higher than average course completion rates and are more likely to graduate.

“We know it works,” she said. “With the generous support of the Davis Foundation, Itsy Bitsy Child Watch is able to meet a critical need for our parenting students. We are deeply grateful for this investment, which brings real relief to our program and will allow us to better support student success across our community.”

The Itsy Bitsy Child Watch program, which serves children from 3 months to 12 years old, is now open Mondays from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Tuesdays through Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Starting in the fall 2026 semester, the center will also be open for evening care four to five evenings a week.

HOLYOKE — Tonight, March 4, Holyoke Community College (HCC) will host “Powerful Pairings: Bringing History to Life,” a conversation with acclaimed young adult authors Claudia Friddell and Kip Wilson.

The free event begins at 6 p.m. in the PeoplesBank Conference Room in the Kittredge Center for Business and Workforce Development on the main HCC campus, 303 Homestead Ave.

The evening will provide an engaging, behind-the-scenes look at the writing process as Friddell and Wilson talk about their latest books: The Mysterious Virginia Hall: WWII’s Most Dangerous Spy, by Fridell; and Backpack Boy, Berlin, a true story of WWII espionage, by Wilson.

From the intrigue of WWII spycraft to the craft of writing for young readers, the authors will reveal how they research and build new stories and share how their experiences as educators continue to shape their work.

This program is sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, and coordinated by Holyoke Community College, the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and Waynesburg University.