Esko Community Education has been working hard to come up with ways to offer programming for the community during this time where schools are trying to limit the number of people inside the building for safety reasons.
These limitations have made the finances for community education programs in the area very challenging. Last spring, many programs were called upon to help with free child care for essential workers. Our child care programs answered the call, but these programs are financed by fees paid by the public, and they all lost a great deal of money by offering the free care.
School age child care programs do not receive any state taxpayer money or subsidies to run child care, therefore, when we offered child care for no cost, our programs took a very large hit to our already tight budgets. This year, due to running smaller numbers to accommodate for spacing in our programs, we are continuing to lose money in nearly all of our program areas.
In community education, we are resilient and creative! In Esko, we have come up with options to earn revenue and offer programs the community may want. We are starting “check-out” classes in the month of November. We have a jewelry stamping set that you can use from Thursday to Monday with a group of friends to make stamped jewelry or keychains.
We also are offering after school clubs for our distance learning students. Finally, we are adding an “After Hours” program giving parents an opportunity to get ready for the holidays with a little time away from their kids.
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All of these programs can be found on the Esko School website under Community Education, class registration. Call 879-4038 if you have questions about these programs.
Esko Community Education is also offering gift certificates for the holiday season. Certificates are available in any amount and must be used by June 30, 2021.
You may use gift certificates on any program we offer including fees for child care. This is your chance to support community education like you support other businesses in the area! Buy a gift certificate for someone you love today!
