South of Market Child Care, Inc. (SOMACC) is a nonprofit agency that has been a strong presence and a highly-regarded institution serving primarily low-income, recent immigrant, homeless and at-risk populations in San Francisco’s South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood since our founding in 1970. Known then as St. Patrick’s Day Care Center located on Clementina St., our program started its operation in a single classroom with 30 children.

The inception of the name South of Market Child Care, Inc. happened in the late 1980’s. SOMACC opened the Yerba Buena Gardens Child Development Center (YBG CDC) on Folsom St. in 1998, which is SOMACC’s main facility. In 1999, we launched the South of Market Family Resource Center (SOMA FRC) in the same location to expand our ability to address family health and well-being. Our original site on Clementina St. was relocated in a low-income housing project on Natoma St. in 2006 and was named Judith Baker Child Development Center (JB CDC) after one of SOMACC’s pioneers. In 2022, we unfortunately had to permanently close the JB CDC.

In 2014, SOMACC was presented with a unique opportunity to open a third site. We applied and after a highly competitive selection process, were chosen by low-income housing developer Mercy Housing California (MHC) and the San Francisco Office of Early Care and Education (SF-OECE) as the provider of the Transbay Child Development Center in the Transbay Project Area, which officially opened in December 2019. This opportunity enables our Agency to expand our early care and education, and family support services to more families and children in the SOMA community.

SOMACC is proud to be one of San Francisco’s leading child development and family resource centers, and our exemplary services have been recognized locally and nationally.

We have been honored with a “Top-Rated Nonprofit” award by GreatNonprofits since 2014 for the exemplary work that we do. The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund has named YBG CDC and JB CDC as “Model Centers” for bringing high quality early care and education to the lowest income children and families in our neighborhood. Moreover, YBG CDC has been voted as the “Best Child Care Center in San Francisco” by the San Francisco Examiner Community Vote since 2016, and was a Yerba Buena Alliance 2019 honoree as the “Guardian of the Gardens.”

What started as a discrete program reaching 30 preschoolers has since grown to become a major early childhood education institution and family support program serving nearly 130 infants, toddlers and preschoolers at two child development centers, and approximately 500+ families at our family resource center each year.