Supercharge PEEPs: Scaling Childcare Solutions in Pima County

Supercharge PEEPs is bringing together Pima County business owners, educators and community leaders to solve one of the region’s most urgent challenges: access to quality, affordable childcare.

High-quality childcare is critical to workforce stability, economic growth, and family well-being. Yet in Southern Arizona, demand far outpaces supply, and funding remains limited. Supercharge PEEPs aims to change that — scaling our collective impact from $1 million to $150 million in annual funding to make quality childcare accessible for working families.

Why This Matters

Reliable childcare is not just a social good — it’s an economic imperative. When businesses and government collaborate strategically, we can:

• Increase funding to expand high-quality childcare programs.
• Ensure equitable access for families across Southern Arizona.
• Support workforce growth by enabling parents to fully participate in the economy.

Supercharge PEEPs Goals

Building on the success of PEEPs (Pima Early Education Program Scholarships), this initiative brings together private-sector leaders, public officials, and community stakeholders to:

• Build strategic partnerships that leverage both private investment and public resources.
• Identify innovative funding solutions to grow from modest local investment to transformative regional impact.
• Share expertise and best practices across sectors to maximize efficiency and outcomes.

Who Should Join Us in This Initiative

Business owners, philanthropists, government leaders, and nonprofit partners who are committed to solving the childcare crisis in Southern Arizona. If you want to be part of a movement that transforms the region’s childcare landscape while boosting workforce participation and economic growth, Supercharge PEEPs is for you.

We expect 4 Convenings to happen between May 2025 and May 2026.  We are currently extending invitations for Convening 2.  Please connect with us if you would like to learn more!

Preparing for Convening #2: October 23, 2025

• TL;DR?  If you only have 5 mins to spare, we recommend the following documents to bring you up-to-date on the prior conversations:
  • PEEPs Convening 1 Report
  • PEEPs Annual Report

• Got 30 mins? We know not everyone can become an expert in policy, practice and principles in the Childcare and ECE space, so we put together these sources of inspiration for your convenience in preparation for the upcoming meeting.  We’ve also included the pre-reads posted for the first convening in our ARCHIVES.
  • Leveraging Tax Incentives for Business Childcare Solutions – A US Chamber Game Plan
  • Child Care Tax Credit Expanded in 2025 – First Five Years Fund
  • IRS Code 45F – Childcare Tax Credits & Incentives
  • State Strategies for Sustained Investments in Kids
  • Addressing North Carolina’s Child Care Crisis
  • Utah Childcare Solutions and Workplace Productivity Plan
  • First Five Nebraska
  • GOWINN – Nevada
  • The Children’s Equity Project in the News

ARCHIVE: Preparing for Convening #1: May 8, 2025

Documents and Content

• March 27, 2025 Memorandum from Jan Lesher, Pima County Administrator
• Community Partners: Pima Early Education Program Scholarships
• PEEPS Preschool Initiative: A Study of Action on Common Community Interests
• First Things First supports PEEPS
• Summary of efforts to expand high quality early learning (including PEEPS)
• The Business of Child Care Fact Sheet

Below is a demo of the Upfront Program (known as CFR’s SandboxAz.org Program).  CCRR is allowed to use this for the referral side of our program, but DES has not given us permission for CCRR to use it for the Provider Portal or Mapping capabilities.  We are also working on an Employer Module to help employers match employees with Child Care providers.

The State needs this program to be able to get real-time (not census) data on provider care, deserts and needs across Arizona, especially in the Rural areas.  CFR has purchased this platform because we saw a need that DES does not have the money to support.  We came upon the platform because DES intended to support this with Covid funds, and asked CFR to research it, but instead saw the important need to support providers in a different way.  CFR stepped up to help and purchased the program.

This program can easily connect with other platforms that are being used throughout DES contracts and other partners, such as SWHD and FTF, both of whom are on board with implementing this program/platform.  This would provide a seamless, one-stop platform for Providers and grantees to connect.  It will also allow providers and families to connect, as well as create a real-time platform for providers to update their program information, vacancy spots, communicate with families, etc.

• CFR-and-Upfront-Sandbox-Demo

Please feel free to share far and wide as we need support in getting DES and the Governor’s office to be aware of what we already have in place (no need to spend millions of dollars, as other states have done), for other programs and allow us to move forward with implementing this platform.

 

Articles

• A New Luxury Building Amenity the Whole Neighborhood Can Use: Child Care
  The New York Times
• New Mexico made childcare free. It lifted 120,000 people above the poverty line.

 

Videos

• The Dual Return on Investing in Quality Early Childhood Programs