UWVBR opens its doors — and marks a historic turning point on childcare

By Abby Verdillo Hamilton, President & CEO, United Way of Virginia’s Blue Ridge

Tuesday morning, we cut the ribbon on our new headquarters, and it turned out to be a bigger moment than even we anticipated.

For a hundred years, United Way has been part of this region’s story. We’ve changed our name to better reflect who we are and where we stand. And today, we opened the doors to a space designed not just for our team, but for the work that belongs to all of us. A place where partners, providers, employers, and community leaders can come together to solve problems that no single organization can solve alone. That’s always been the United Way model. But this next chapter, we’re leaning into it more intentionally than ever.

What we didn’t know until the night before is that we’d be marking something else alongside it.

Governor Spanberger signed the Employee Child Care Assistance Program into law.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

For years, we’ve made the case that childcare isn’t just a family issue. It’s a workforce issue, and an economic one. And it’s a challenge our region cannot afford to keep absorbing quietly. Across Virginia, childcare challenges cost our economy an estimated $4.6 billion every year.

Behind that figure: nearly 9 out of 10 employers report employees arriving late or missing work because of childcare. 85% say it’s affecting productivity. And about 1 in 3 are seeing employees leave jobs entirely because reliable, affordable options simply don’t exist.

These aren’t abstract statistics. They represent parents in our communities making impossible choices, local businesses struggling to hold onto good people, and potential our region is leaving on the table. We see it every day. Households who are doing everything right, and still experiencing financial instability because one barrier, like childcare, disrupts everything else. No family should have to navigate that alone. And no region that wants to grow and compete can afford to ignore it.

A Historic Turning Point

Virginia has been building toward this moment for years. The commitment, the policy groundwork, the partnerships were not built overnight. But this legislation is different. Years from now, we’ll look back at the Employee Child Care Assistance Program as the moment the strategy truly shifted.

The new law creates a state match for employers who invest in their employees’ childcare costs. It’s a rallying signal that calls businesses, providers, and communities across our region to align around a shared truth: when working families thrive, businesses thrive. When businesses invest in their people, the whole region moves forward. This isn’t something any one sector can do alone. It takes employers, providers, civic leaders, and community organizations all moving in the same direction.

Here at United Way, through Ready Region West, our regional early childhood network, we’ve spent years helping build the coalition, the data, and the relationships that contributed to making this possible. So Monday evening’s signing felt like more than policy news. It felt like confirmation that when this region works together, it moves something.

What We’re Building Next

Our new headquarters was designed for exactly this. A home base for the kind of regional coordination that turns momentum into lasting change. Not a place where United Way works in isolation, but a place where the region comes together to understand where gaps exist, where energy is building, and how we move forward in a more connected way.

Over the coming months, we’ll be engaging partners across Virginia’s Blue Ridge in conversations to shape a coordinated regional approach to childcare, one grounded in what families, providers, and employers are actually navigating on the ground.

The work ahead is bigger than any one organization, any one sector, or any one solution. But we have something rare right now: a policy tailwind, a community that has been building toward this, and a region full of people who understand what’s at stake.

Childcare is one piece of a much larger puzzle. Our Opening Doors Campaign is about building the kind of regional collaboration that drives economic prosperity for everyone in Virginia’s Blue Ridge. If this connects with what you care about, we want to hear from you. Whether that means joining a conversation, sharing your perspective, or partnering on what comes next, there’s a place for you in this work.

One hundred years in, a new name, a new home, and a new law on the books. This is what the next chapter looks like, and it belongs to all of us. We’re grateful to everyone who joined us Tuesday morning for our ribbon-cutting, and even more excited about what we’ll build together from here.