The Latin American Community Center is set to open a new early learning center in New Castle.
The new La Fiesta 3 Early Learning Center will officially open its doors on Monday. It’s the Latin American Community Center’s first permanent location outside of Wilmington.
LACC president and CEO Maria Matos says putting this early learning center in New Castle is essentially going where the Latino population is growing.
"It behooves us to take our services to where the people are growing. Wilmington is still there. Our buildings are full. We have no more space in Wilmington, even though we built a new building in Wilmington, it's gone, there's no spaces,” said Matos. “So here we bring the services to New Castle County and the population of Latino's in New Castle County. It's incredible, unbelievable, the growth."
When the new La Fiesta 3 Learning Center opens, there will be 31 students enrolled for preschool. It can eventually accommodate 96 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years old.
"If we do not help poor children start kindergarten ready, they're just going to fall behind, and they're not going to be reading. So kids have to learn to read and then read to learn, and they can't read to learn if they haven't learned to read. That is very important, and it's close to my heart and the goals that I have for our community," said Matos.
Matos adds the school’s goal is to prepare children for kindergarten by providing high quality, bilingual early childhood education, and have them able to read by second grade.
