OGDEN, Utah – Members of the Northern Utah Child Care Resource and Referral Agency will be spending their Mondays at Camp Williams for the foreseeable future, helping provide child care for some of the smallest refugees from Hurricane Katrina.

The agency, located in the Jerry and Vickie Moyes College of Education at Weber State University, will send two staff members a week to Camp Williams, where nearly 600 evacuees from New Orleans have been relocated. That population includes 40 children ranging in age from infants to 12 years old.

Volunteers have painted and carpeted two rooms at the camp to serve as a child care facility when parents must leave the camp to work on getting their lives back to normal. Children will be divided according to age, with infants and toddlers in one room and older children in the other.

 "We're there to look after the children while their parents are busy stitching their lives back together," said Leslie Trottier, program coordinator for the Northern Utah Child Care Resource & Referral Agency. "It's a safe place for their kids while they are out looking for employment, attending medical appointments or looking for more permanent places to live."

Trottier said not all the children will be at the child care at one time.

The state's Office of Child Care in Salt Lake City is coordinating staffing for the Camp Williams facility. Staff from sister agencies in Salt Lake City and Orem will provide child care coverage Tuesday through Friday.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about WSU.