Fair Share is expanding access to affordable child care & early education

Investments made possible by Fair Share are helping to make more high-quality child care and early education options available at a cost families can afford.

Widening access to affordable child care

$51M expanded access to affordable child care through the Child Care Financial Assistance (CCFA) program, which provides subsidies to help families afford care while working, studying, or pursuing job training. With Fair Share support, CCFA reached an additional 18,500 working families, helping more parents return to work and more children get the strong start they need.

Growing high-quality preschool opportunities

2,235  children attended a CPPI preschool classroom for free or with state financial support in Fiscal Year 2025

$26M supported the expansion of the Commonwealth Preschool Partnership Initiative (CPPI), which is now in 23 out of 30 Gateway Cities and 7 other communities. CPPI supports kindergarten readiness through grants that expand local access to high-quality, affordable preschool. Communities participating in CPPI must prioritize affordability, consistent quality and inclusion.

Communities are at various stages of implementation:

• Early Implementation Communities are in transition from planning to service delivery and can use CPPI funds to hire staff and get classrooms ready to open in the coming school year.
• Mid-Implementation Communities are running classrooms and growing their capacity to meet the three program priorities. This phase usually lasts for multiple years.
• Advanced Implementation Communities have fulfilled the expectations of all three priorities and are working to scale their impact over more classrooms.

Explore the map to find communities participating in CPPI in Fiscal Year 2025

Bolstering community child care providers

432  providers have received support from C3 so far

Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) was launched in 2021, originally with federal funding, to address the financial burden of the Covid-19 pandemic for child care providers. C3 supports providers’ day-to-day operational costs so that they can continue to offer affordable child care options for working families.

Massachusetts is the only state that has maintained these critical grants for child care providers beyond the end of federal funding, with $535M of Fair Share support. As a result, our state’s child care system has rebounded and now exceeds pre-pandemic license capacity. Today, C3 supports more than 8,000 programs in Massachusetts, helping employ more than 42,000 educators and lower costs for families. Increasing the availability of high-quality, affordable child care means that more parents can get back to work, secure in the knowledge that their children are getting a strong start.

Impact Spotlight: Square One Springfield

C3 provided Square One with the financial stability it needed to stay open in the face of growing financial pressures. Bolstered by C3, Square One continues to serve working families in need of high-quality, affordable child care.

“C3 allowed Square One to keep all of our classrooms open, all of our staff were employed. Because, again, we were able to maintain that business stability, children are cared for in a healthy environment.”

— Dawn DiStefano President & CEO of Square One, Springfield

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Last updated:	February 5, 2026