MAINE, USA — A child care center in Bar Harbor will close two years after it opened with help from $250,000 in federal funding, as child care options across the state diminish and become increasingly unaffordable.

The Island of Imagination Early Learning Center at the Jackson Laboratory will close on Dec. 31, it informed families this week. The building is owned by the Jackson Laboratory and operated by Down East Family YMCA.

The child care center decided to close because it was losing more money than it could bring in, and it was “not sustainable for the organization,” said Matt Montgomery, CEO of Down East Family YMCA.

There has been a decade-long trend of closures of small, family-run daycares across the state but not as many closures of large child care centers like the one at th

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