Six decades of love and care celebrated at MOCCA

Posted on 20 October, 2023

Manuka Occasional Childcare Centre Association (MOCCA) is turning 60 on Saturday and there is plenty to celebrate!

Between 10.30am to 2.30pm there will be face painting, music, including Johnny Huckle (between 10.30-11.30) and coffee. Come chat, play in their beautiful playground and share the love.

MOCCA has been catering to generations of Canberra families as a not-for-profit charity that provides care for children aged six weeks to school age, and their families.

In March 1963, the Canberra Mothercraft Society was given the original building and began providing a service that supported mothers during those early days of the city’s development. As the population grew, so did community demand and MOCCA has now been caring for local children and families for six decades.

Early in 1987 the ACT Government called for tenders from the community to manage the service as an independently run community organisation. The successful submission came from parents who were using the centre and who were committed to the service remaining a stand-alone community service. In 1988, the Manuka Occasional Childcare Centre Association was formed and the acronym ‘MOCCA’ began.

Nowadays, MOCCA operates as a not-for-profit long day care, and looks after families from diverse socio and cultural backgrounds. MOCCA has been consistently rated as exceeding in all seven quality areas of the National Quality Framework and is proud to offer high-quality early childhood education and care to the local community.

The not-for-profit model means the onus is on parents to help fundraise for some much-needed projects to improve the indoor and outdoor space, and tomorrow’s celebrations include a major raffle. In keeping with MOCCA’s respect for its children, the fundraising process is a collaborative effort. with kids making lots of suggestions about how money raised could be best spent.