Donate today to support bilingual, affordable childcare for families in Downeast Maine

Mano en Mano opened the Rayitos de Sol (“Little Sunbeams'' in English) Bilingual Child Care Center in January 2021. Our core mission is to provide bilingual Spanish and English child care services centering the languages and cultures of the students we serve. Rayitos de Sol is open to all families in the Downeast community. We hope the center will act as a bridge connecting families from different backgrounds so that language and culture are valued and appreciated by our whole community.

Right now, the center is operating out of the Mano en Mano office as we wait to move to a new, expanded location in the area in 2022.

We are so excited to be able to offer much needed affordable child care services for families in our community, and, importantly, to be able to emphasize and celebrate language with young children who otherwise might lose their Spanish or only ever speak English.

Children of working parents can spend up to half of their waking hours in child care. When a child's first language is something other than English, monolingual childcare can mean missed opportunities to practice and learn their native language – a vital loss of connection to family and culture.

Please join us in supporting this community-led pilot program in 2021, and help us grow the program into its permanent home in 2022! For questions about the program, please contact Juana Rodriguez Vazquez at (207) 598-7149 or jrodriguez@manomaine.org.

If you'd prefer to donate by mail, you can do so by mailing a check made payable to "Mano en Mano / Hand in Hand" to PO Box 573, Milbridge, ME 04658.