History of CCC

Concord Children’s Center (CCC) was founded in 1975 by Chris McVinney (Gerzon) and Debra Begner, young working mothers who saw a need in Concord for a full-time early childhood center offering reliable and flexible childcare. CCC opened in September 1975 at the Harvey Wheeler Center with 15 preschoolers and 10 after-school students.

Many of the best practices that CCC is known for have existed from our founding, including:

• A commitment to hiring high-quality teachers and paying them high salaries (for the field).
• Offering staff a childcare benefit and six weeks’ vacation.
• Offering school year optional weeks and a summer program.
• Having Center workdays on two days in June and one week in August to clean, organize and update the facility.

CCC added a group for 2-year-olds the first year it was open and an infant program in 1986. To accommodate these expanding programs as well as increasing student numbers, CCC opened a second site at Ripley on the east side of Concord in 1981, and a third location across from Emerson Hospital in 1986. In 2001, as a result of CCC needing to move out of its home at the Harvey Wheeler building to allow for the expansion of town programs there, CCC began construction of a purpose-built facility in West Concord. This project included a successful three-year capital campaign, which raised almost $1 million. The West Concord location opened in 2002.

In 1986, CCC became one of the first programs in the country to be accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children under its new accreditation standards. Since this time, CCC has maintained continuous accreditation.

In the early 2000s, CCC conducted a strategic long-range planning process. This exercise concluded that CCC would be best positioned to meet our mission and serve our families by restructuring to a two-site model with one site on the east side of town and one on the west, both owned by CCC. After a long search for an appropriate property, CCC purchased 250 Old Bedford Road in February 2020 to serve as its second home, replacing our Emerson and Ripley sites. CCC broke ground on the new East Concord site in fall 2022, and it opened in November 2023.

Today, CCC serves over 160 children from more than 130 families residing in Concord and surrounding towns. CCC is the only non-profit, full-time, year-round childcare program in town that accepts state vouchers for low-income families. With support from the Concord community and the CCC Board of Directors 10-12% of CCC families receive tuition assistance.  

The basis of CCC’s programs today is the same as it was in 1975: a curriculum based on children’s innate curiosity and creativity; a staff of professionally trained early childhood educators who believe that educating young children is a partnership between parents and teachers; and an awareness of the importance of nature-based play. The young children who started with CCC in 1975 are now in their 50s, and CCC is still living its vision—a vision from which thousands of children and their families in Concord and neighboring towns have benefited and continue to benefit.