(Tribune News Service) — When their family was stationed at a military base in Washington, D.C., Kayla Corbitt planned on using her husband’s Army benefits to pay for childcare so she could work. But when her baby was ready for daycare, the family’s application for the benefit was still pending.

So they paid full tuition with the promise of being reimbursed. But after eight weeks and nearly $5,000 in childcare bills, their application was denied.

“I had my employment and my childcare and everything lined up, and then all of it came crashing down,” Corbitt said.

Military families often earn too much to qualify for public programs to help pay for childcare, and military subsidies are difficult to access, Corbitt said. Her experience led her to start Operation Child Care in 2023 to help others avoid the struggles she faced.

In 2024, the Texas-based nonprofit, which operates nationwide and is funded primarily by individual donations, helped more than 600 families.

Corbitt found her son’s daycare in a directory of military approved centers. But it wasn’t until after the family drained their savings on tuition that they were told the directory was outdated and their son’s daycare was no longer approved.

The military uses a third party to administer its childcare benefits, and its system is largely automated, which can be a barrier for families, said Sabrina Dalton, COO of Operation Child Care.

“The system is failing them because they can’t make any progress with ‘Thank you for your email, we will be with you in 7-10 business days’ and then in 7-10 business days, no one’s with them,” Dalton said.

At Operation Child Care, families can speak directly with a case manager, who will review their options, give them step-by-step guidance on accessing those options and assist them along the way.

“Kayla has figured out how to get traction and movement for families that are just stuck in the system,” Dalton said.

Samantha Luke’s husband was assigned to Patrick Space Force Base in Cocoa Beach. But the family lived more than an hour away in Port St. Lucie, where there were no military-approved childcare centers.

So when Luke found a daycare, it had to be certified. During the three-month certification process, which mostly involves an assessment of the center’s rates and the family’s income, the Lukes paid the full tuition of $1,400 a month, which was a strain.

When the funding was approved, the monthly tuition dropped to $850 and they were credited for the extra money they paid. But after the first year, they had to be recertified. During that process, which took six months, their tuition went back up to $1,400.

“All that involved is us verifying our income, and then the center verifying their rates. That’s all it entails but it took six months,” Luke said.

Soon after being recertified, the center dropped Luke’s son because it was overcrowded. The military assigned Luke a new daycare. But she was not happy with the quality of the facility. So she filed an appeal to get permission to go to a daycare of her choosing.

During the appeals process, which took four months, she had to keep an eye on her son while working from home.

“I would have to cancel meetings or reschedule them. Or I’d have to get my husband to leave work early, which you know is affecting military readiness,” Luke said.

It was then that Luke reached out to Operation Child Care. A case manager for the nonprofit helped her reword her appeal and looped senior leadership in on the correspondence.

“Once that happened, that’s when stuff started moving. Because for a while it was just stagnant,” Luke said.

With the nonprofit’s help, the appeal was approved, and Luke’s son went to the new center. The family has since been reassigned to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where childcare costs are lower and they don’t need the extra support.

Last year, Corbitt’s nonprofit expanded its support when it launched Homefront Help in Florida’s Emerald Coast. The new initiative aims to connect families with trusted caregivers.

Because military families move so frequently, they are less likely to have friends and family nearby to help watch their kids. Corbitt said these families were often turning to Facebook to try and find help.

“These were gaps that were being filled by strangers, essentially, on the internet,” Corbitt said.

Under the new initiative, community members – oftentimes former preschool teachers – are recruited to help watch military family’s children. They are given background checks, CPR and first aid training and are provided a curriculum, should families want to use them to supplement preschool.

The Homefront Help initiative is funded by a grant from the Bainum Family Foundation, a Washington DC nonprofit that helps connect families with early childhood learning. The foundation has not disclosed the amount of the grant.

Under Homefront Help, the caregivers set their own rates and Operation Child Care works as a referral service. With the grant, it is able to help some families pay for the care, since military subsidies are not available for such a program.

Since the program launched last November, it has helped 147 families with things like picking kids up from preschool and sitting with them while parents are at work, taking them to therapy appointments or giving mom and dad an evening out.

Corbitt knows well how much this flexible assistance means to parents, and how frustrating a more rigid system can be.

After Corbitt’s son’s daycare was turned down for the funding, the family had to take out an emergency relief loan from the Army to cover the deposit and tuition at a new facility while their funding was being approved.

“But what really sucks about those loans is they are loans. So they immediately started garnishing my spouse’s wages, which were really the only thing keeping us afloat at the time,” Corbitt said.

It took a couple months, but the Corbitt’s were approved for a tuition subsidy at the new center. Corbitt said military families are often praised for being resilient because of situations like that. But resilience is a term she resents.

“There are very high-tension levels within military families. They call it resilience, which is a really frustrating word,” Corbitt said, adding that military families should not have to be so resilient when it comes to childcare. “The situations causing the resilience don’t need to exist.”

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