Two USC Dornsife students create an organization to provide free in-home child care to medical workers during the pandemic

When seniors Olivia Frary and Sana Abbaali left the USC campus this spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they did not spend their time idling on the couch. Instead, they and their friends immediately turned their energies to helping those medical workers who were scrambling to find — or, perhaps more importantly, afford — child care after schools and most day care services shut down.

So, they and a group of friends came up with a solution that eliminates the problem in the simplest way possible: COVID Child Care, an organization that provides free in-home child care and a few other services for medical workers, from custodial staff to surgeons.

“This pandemic has really made me see how much of a problem affordable child care is, especially in communities right here at home. It’s something that the people taking care of you need,” said Frary, who lives in Southern California’s Coachella Valley.

Olivia Frary is co-founder of COVID Child Care. (Photo: Courtesy of Olivia Frary.)

COVID Child Care was founded by Frary, who serves as its communications director, and her friend Ryan Cieslikowski, a student at Stanford University. The two have been friends since childhood and attended high school together.

Frary and Cieslikowski quickly enlisted the help of several friends, including Abbaali, who knew Frary from the many courses they had taken together as political science majors at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Although COVID Child Care originally offered care services only in the Coachella Valley, it has since grown to several other cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Reno, Nevada. In addition to child care, the organization offers some other services, like grocery shopping and tutoring, to its families.

Reaching out to family and friends

At first, volunteers for COVID Child Care were the immediate friends, former high school classmates and family friends of the founding members. Soon, those volunteers brought their own friends on board, and the organization grew rapidly. Now, it has more than 400 volunteers, most of whom are women between the ages of 17 and 26, Frary said.

“As we’ve grown, we’ve grown our network. It’s been a testament to how much people are willing to step up for their communities,” Frary said.

When a worker needs child care, he or she can access the organization’s website and fill out an application. COVID Child Care then contacts nearby volunteers to see who might be able to take the job. Then, the organization puts the applicant in touch with volunteer candidates.

Although COVID Child Care does not conduct criminal background checks on volunteers, it encourages applicants to conduct phone or in-person interviews to figure out if a candidate is a good fit and to establish trust between the parties. There is a ratio of one volunteer per household.

To better serve an array of families, many of the volunteers are multilingual; between them, they speak 30 languages. Although the most popular requested language is Spanish, there are caregivers who speak Urdu, Japanese, American Sign Language, Tagalog, Russian and Samoan, among others.

Thus far, the organization has managed to provide care services for every worker who has applied for them, Frary said.

The cost of child care

Sana Abbaali helps coordinate COVID Child Care services in Orange County, California. (Photo: Courtesy of Olivia Frary.)

Frary said that COVID Child Care’s services save an average one-child household $680 per week; in total, the organization has saved medical workers more than $50,000 total in child care expenses. On top of affordability, the simple availability of child care has been a boon to many workers.

“When I saw a video of a woman, one of the first people we helped, who was so grateful — hearing how grateful she was made me really want to help more people,” said Abbaali, who lives in Orange County, California.

Frary noted that the crisis, combined with her political science background, has prompted her to consider the larger-scale implications of the cost of child care for lower-income families, single mothers, and others who need services the most. She isn’t ruling out pursuing a career in advocacy to make child care more affordable and accessible.

For now, Frary and Abbaali plan to continue helping run COVID Child Care for as long as the services are needed, including through the fall. And with the start of the academic school year for younger children, they’re looking at offering more tutoring and academic services, as well.

“As long as there’s a need for free child care during this pandemic, this is certainly something we’re going to continue,” Frary said.