Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com Worcester Business Journal Giving Guide 2026 9 800-939-9103 cornerstonebank.com Member FDIC | Member DIF Scan the QR code to connect with us. More Than Half of Businesses in the U.S. Reported Fraud in the Past Two Years We Can Help with Positive Pay Positive Pay is the leading fraud-prevention solution designed to help protect your business against altered, forged, or counterfeit checks and ACH debits clearing your account—with the convenience of reviewing and acting on decision items right from online banking or the mobile app. In 2025, we protected our business customers from over $250,000 in fraudulent transactions, and we're just getting started. 5.0 Based on 196 Reviews 49 Main St. Sturbridge, MA 01566 www.ClearComIT.com/nonprofit "Preferred IT vendor" of the Partner with ClearCom IT Solutions for responsive & reliable IT service and support for your organization. Give us a call! 508-205-1114 Your mission deserves IT support that won't let you down. Secure systems. Reliable support. Technology that helps your nonprofit stay focused on the mission. DREAM COME TRUE For Minerva Caba, owner of Kinderbloom Learning Center in Worcester, the incubator presents the perfect opportunity. She had successfully operated a family childcare business from a rented apart- ment until conflicts with her landlord and neighbors threatened everything she had built. Required property improvements became increasingly expensive, and maintaining the business no longer felt sustainable. "I felt hopeless about my business," she said. Finding the incubator "was like a dream come true." Since moving into the Guild space, Kinderbloom has expanded from six chil- dren to 10 while Caba saves toward opening a permanent childcare center. "ese projects give hope to other providers," she said. Fellow incubator participant Eva Fajardo entered the program aer purchasing a fixer-upper in Millbury. She planned to open a childcare business, Peek-a-Boo Family Child Care, from her home but quickly realized the repairs required before licensing were financially out of reach. e incubator allowed her to begin serving families immediately while saving money to complete renovations. "It pushed us to dream a little bit more," she said. Family childcare providers represent what many nonprofit leaders see as one of the fastest ways to increase childcare capacity. Unlike larger centers, family childcare businesses generally require lower start- up costs, can operate closer to neighborhoods where families live, and oen offer more flexible schedules, an important advantage for shi workers, healthcare employees, and others working outside traditional business hours. Creating more providers, however, solves only part of the problem. Even when childcare exists, many working families cannot afford it. at realization has led another coalition of nonprofits to test an entirely different approach. EMPLOYER-SPONSORED CARE? e Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts, United Way of North Central Massachusetts, and Heywood Healthcare are developing a three- share funding model that would combine employer contributions, employee payments, and outside funding to reduce childcare costs for workers. e concept grew directly from Heywood's workforce research and collabora- tion with these regional supporters. Stephen Adams, president of the Communi- ty Foundation of North Central Massachusetts, believes childcare has become a missed opportunity for employers looking to improve recruitment and retention. Rather than viewing childcare strictly as an employee benefit, he sees it as an investment in workforce stability. If successful, the Heywood pilot could become a model for employers across the region. Together, the incubator and employer-sponsored childcare initiative tackle dif- ferent sides of the same challenge. Neither could happen without collaboration among nonprofits, employers, philanthropy, and government. "It really highlights the power of collaboration," Shei said. n continued from page 7

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