Dear parents,

We are addressing you in an acute crisis situation that could not be foreseen by anyone.The effects of the Corona virus and of the measures adopted to control it are serious.

As a result of last week's decisions by the cantonal governments of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft, the daycare centers (Kitas) in both cantons had to be closed; this naturally also applies to all Familycare Kitas. Since then, the daycare centers are in principle only open to children whose parents work in system-critical healthcare professions. Due to this situation, a relatively small number of children are currently still being looked after, but with significantly reduced staff. The Kita closures will last until at least Sunday, April 19, 2020.

This means that our daycare centers, in which we are usually allowed to look after around 670 children covering 315 places, have been largely or completely empty since this week. Now we must do everything we can to secure the jobs of our 170 employees and the future existence of Familycare Basel.

We have applied for short-time working compensation for the part of our employees who are entitled to it, and we are keeping our teams busy with many tasks that are sometimes neglected in everyday life, which should benefit you and your children when the daycare centers are allowed to open again. On the expenditure side, we are also reducing all other fixed costs where we can, and, in doing so, we appeal to the solidarity and cooperation of our employees, suppliers and partners.

However, in order to secure the survival of Familycare Basel, we are urgently dependent on short-term income. As a non-profit organization, we have only limited reserves and cannot draw on significant savings. We therefore appeal to the solidarity of you, the parents of "our" daycare children, to support us as far as you can, so that Familycare Basel can survive and, once the Corona crisis has levelled off, can once again care for your children.

We therefore take the liberty of sending you the invoice for parental contributions for the second half of April 2020. This income will bridge our most urgent liquidity shortages. At the same time, we hope that the daycare center closures ordered by the cantons will be lifted on April 19, 2020 and that we will be able to resume our work in the daycare centers to the usual extent from Monday, April 20, 2020.

Should the closure period be extended, we are counting on the confederation and the cantons, which have repeatedly promised to provide substantial support to companies affected by the Corona crisis. The government of the canton of Basel-Stadt has also explicitly stated that state contributions will be considered to ensure the financial survival of institutions important to the community (such as daycare centers) in the post-Corona crisis period. If state support is granted, we will do everything in our power to reimburse parental contributions paid in advance for a period during which children could not be looked after.

We repeat our appeal to you to please support us in our fight for future survival by paying the invoice sent to you today, so that - hopefully from April 20, 2020 - after the official reopening of the childcare facilities, we can welcome your children back to Familycare Basel, in all our daycare centers, to the usual extent and, above all, with the familiar team of employees, being able to say: Together we have mastered the crisis.