The Early Childhood & Family HUB is starting in Washington Heights.
We are building a first-of-its-kind integrated community center for children ages 0–5 and their caregivers — a free, welcoming space where families can play, learn, connect, and access the support they need, all under one roof.
Washington Heights is resilient and resourceful — but families here navigate genuine structural barriers every day. Language, income, immigration status, and fragmented services make it harder for families to access what their children need during the most critical years of development.
This is a community that has built extraordinary institutions from the ground up, in multiple languages, across generations. The HUB is the next one. By bringing everything under one roof, free and welcoming, it removes the friction that stands between families and the support they deserve.
Every program at the HUB will be developed with — and often co-led by an existing early childhood collaborative member — artists, educators, and community organizations rooted in Washington Heights. Culturally responsive, bilingual, and completely free.
Led by art-focused community-based organizations and individuals, this program will help develop children's fine motor skills and foster creativity and self-expression through art activities for children and their caregivers.
This dedicated area will serve as a space for early intervention evaluators to identify and provide resources to children exhibiting physical, cognitive, communication, social-emotional, and/or adaptive disabilities.
Recognizing the social-emotional, motor and cognitive benefits of free play during early development, these areas will encourage independence, provide opportunities to explore unfamiliar surroundings, and help children thrive.
Programming will be led by music-focused community-based organizations and NYC cultural institutions and promote creativity and self-expression.
All spaces and programming of the HUB will promote parental self-sufficiency and resiliency and model positive parenting. Nido de Esperanza will be co-located at the HUB and will provide longitudinal, intensive ongoing site-based parental support.
HUB staff and literary-focused community partners will teach families the importance of reading with children to foster early literacy and decrease the cognitive gap that exists at school entry.
The HUB will have a community teaching kitchen where staff will lead culturally appropriate and budget-sensitive cooking classes and workshops that enable families to incorporate healthy eating into their daily routines.
Families will be supported as they engage in financial planning for themselves and their children, including help with starting a Baby Savings account and applying for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
Advocates will regularly meet with caregivers to assess evolving needs, support systems, and goals. They will assist with physical and mental health navigation, connection to postpartum doula support, parenting readiness, and material goods.
This program will offer connection to free legal services to low-income families with young children.
HUB staff will help caregivers find and apply for federal and state benefits such as Medicaid, childcare assistance, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
A warm café where caregivers come together, find connection, and build community. A place to breathe, belong, and be seen.
The HUB will facilitate networking opportunities among early childhood-facing agencies, promote self-advocacy skills for parents, and address caregivers experiencing maternal isolation.
Families and community organizations will be able to take advantage of office and workshop spaces as needed. These rooms will be equipped with free Wi-Fi, computers, and printers.
Through "Early Childhood Ambassadors," UMECC helps connect families to early education and child development resources, services, and existing programs.
The HUB is designed to feel like somewhere families want to spend the whole day — warm, beautiful, and built for the full breadth of community life. A true third space.
The HUB has been shaped from its earliest days with input from local families, community collaborators, and experts in early childhood development. A community steering committee has guided the project and will continue to provide oversight as we grow.
A collective of over 25 child-facing agencies in Northern Manhattan, co-led by leading community organizations. UMECC guides the development and programming of the HUB, ensuring deep community alignment at every step.
Working with the most vulnerable babies in their first 1,000 days of life. Nido co-inhabits the HUB space and leads our parenting program — a founding partner and kindred spirit.
Early childhood is the single greatest opportunity to shape a life. The brain develops faster in the first three years than at any other point — and the environment a child grows up in determines how much of that potential is realized.
When families have access to the right support, the right community, and the right space, children thrive. And when children thrive, so do families, neighborhoods, and cities.
The HUB is designed to ensure that the children of Washington Heights — one of the most culturally extraordinary communities in America — have every advantage in that critical window.
"The highest return on investment in education comes from investing in the earliest years of a child's life."— James Heckman, Nobel Laureate in Economics · The Heckman Equation, 2012
This community has the resilience and the determination — now it just needs the resources. The HUB gives it a place to show up, come together, and make sure every child gets the extraordinary start they deserve.
To discuss a gift or request more information, please reach out directly:
Admin@ECFHub.org