Council approves $1.3M for critical HVAC fixes for KidsQuest Children’s Museum, early learning at Lake Washington Institute of Technology 

August 15, 2023

KidsQuest Children’s Museum and Lake Washington Institute of Technology received big boosts from the King County Council Tuesday, when it approved $1.3 million of funding in one of the last appropriations of federal COVID-19 dollars.

“I’m so pleased to support children and families with these funds while they’re still available. With this money, we will provide essential cooling and ventilation improvements for a treasured children’s museum, and build new childcare facilities to enable low-income students to strive for new educational opportunities at Washington state’s only public institute of technology,” said King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci. “These investments help address the new normal of COVID-19, while helping an essential childcare and development center recover from the impacts of the pandemic.”

KidsQuest will receive $300,000 to fund initial upgrades to the museum’s HVAC system, so that it can handle increasingly hotter days and continue providing adequate ventilation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a vital educational resource, KidsQuest is a place where children learn through play and exploration in an environment designed just for them. We have a responsibility to the more than 200,000 people we serve each year to ensure that the facility remains safe and healthy with appropriate ventilation, heating, and cooling, so that we can continue to make a positive difference in the lives of children and families in King County,” said Putter Bert, President and CEO of KidsQuest Children’s Museum. “We are truly grateful to the King County Council for their support of this critical infrastructure upgrade.”

An additional $1 million will go to the Lake Washington Institute of Technology to rebuild its Early Learning Center following the severe disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2020, LWTech was the first college in the country to be impacted by coronavirus when some of its Nursing and Physical Therapy Assistant students and faculty were exposed to the virus at a long-term care facility. The childcare services support LWTech students with children – 100% of whom are low-income women and 32% who are people of color (of the parents who reported the information). This service is essential as childcare in the Kirkland area remains inaccessible due to costs often exceeding $24,000 per year. A student can enroll their child for only $1,400/month due to the annual subsidies provided by LWTech.

"The establishment of a new Early Learning Center (ELC) at LWTech brings significant benefits to both the students we serve and the surrounding community,” said Dr. Amy Morrison, LWTech president. “By expanding the capacity of our current childcare center by more than 50%, we will support more parents in accessing higher education that leads to high wage and high demand jobs in King County and surrounding areas. As one of the few childcare centers in East King County that accepts all forms of state subsidies without enrollment caps, LWTech's ELC is an affordable option for members of our community who need it most."