On Friday, First 5 Contra Costa broke ground on a new $3.1 million facility in the City of Pittsburg.
In October of 2017, First 5 Contra Costa purchased the new location in the City of Pittsburg in order to build a larger; state of the art facility to meet the growing needs of children and families in East County, Contra Costa County’s fastest growing region.
Compared to the rest of the Contra Costa County, there are fewer service-providers in East County, and those that do exist are far apart from one another, and public transportation is insufficient. The lack of access to community resources is a compounding factor that makes dedicated family-focused work in the region so critical.
Sean Casey, Executive Director, First 5 Contra Costa, explained some of the history and how in their strategic plan they worked to create a place for people to go.
“Its been 20 years now since the voters of California approved Proposition 10 created First 5 across California. We have been working in Contra Costa quite actively since 2000 to build out the services for young children and their families that we know are desperately needed across the county,” said Casey. “Twenty years ago when we did our first strategic plan, we had people all over the county, reading out and say, what do we need in Contra Costa to support families. And one of the things we’ve heard more than just about anything else from families was we need a place where we could go with our kids and learn about our child’s development and how we could be better parents.”
Casey said they heard the request and that was what they built, a place for parents to go and meet other parents and learn to get resources.
“In the past two years, our mission was to build this out in East County and we took this step to say we want to not only expand and deepen our services of East County and for that reason we purchased this building and are making the investment.”
Contra Costa District Attorney Diana Becton said her office has made a push to engage with students and parents and this is just another example.
“If we can keep kids in school, and keep them there, we know its going to go a long way in keeping our community safer,” said Becton.
The new location is a 12 minute walk from the Pittsburg Center BART Station, and sits between Railroad Ave. and Harbour St., two of Pittsburg’s busiest corridors with access to several Tri-Delta Transit bus lines.
Demolition at the new location is underway and will be completed in the coming days. To commemorate the project’s transition from demolition to construction. One open, the facility is located at 355 E. Leland Road in Pittsburg.
For more on First 5 Contra Costa, click here.
