Becky Patrick leads fundraising and partnerships at The Seedling Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit pioneering a new model for the U.S. childcare crisis: acquiring privately-owned daycares and preschools from retiring founders and converting them into employee-owned schools through ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans). She also has over 20 years of child care experience as a director and owner She works at the intersection of three timely stories journalists are actively covering: The childcare cliff — rising tuition, shrinking margins, and the wave of independent preschools closing as Boomer-era owners retire without succession plans. The employee ownership movement — ESOPs as a tool for wealth-building among low-wage workers, particularly the predominantly female, often immigrant early-c...