An unexpected $44.5 million cut in government funding was among the causes for a challenging 2025 at the Children’s Center of Knoxville.
The Children’s Center of Knoxville navigated an unexpected $44.5 million cut in government funding in 2025, and staff and supporters know there’s another challenging year ahead of them. But 2026 is also a hopeful year: It marks the nonprofit child care center’s 50th anniversary.
For the years ahead, executive director Kristen Cannon’s hope remains the same: “To continue to serve the less fortunate by providing quality early childhood education.”
CCK plans to be ‘stable, constant, resourceful’
CCK was founded out of a desire to create a place that offered “quality child care for all,” board chair Gillian Denham Jones told Knox News…