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New learning center in Marietta gives parents free preschool opportunity

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Wednesday for the Learning Spaces center in Marietta's Walton Village affordable living community.

MARIETTA, Ga. — A new learning center in Marietta is offering parents the chance to access once-a-week preschool programming for the children - at no cost.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Wednesday for the Learning Spaces center in Marietta's Walton Village affordable living community. The United Way of Greater Atlanta operates more than a dozen Learning Spaces around the metro, the first having opened in 2016.

The United Way describes the centers as places for "targeted early learning opportunities in communities historically underserved with similar programming."

The program is available to children under five years old and was "developed in collaboration with local libraries and early childhood professionals to be a preschool program in non-traditional spaces, often churches and community centers."

RELATED: Parents push for easier childcare access in Georgia

"Walton Village is a very unique concept. They not only provide housing and affordable apartment living, they also build communities so that residents who live here find not only an apartment, they find a community," said Patrice Laird-Walker with United Way of  Greater Atlanta. "Learning Spaces partnered with Walton Village to be able to offer the early-learning experience for parents here so that they have a place to come and bring their child once a week - to explore, to be creative, to be nurtured and for our parents to feel empowered to become advocates for their child's learning."

One parent, Jacqueline Paiz, said she had noticed attending the center had "made a difference" in her daughter's socializing and speech skills already.

For more on the program, see the United Way of Greater Atlanta website here.

   

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