Published June 1, 2010

(Peter Blanchard/Flickr)

Summer is about to start, which means families across Massachusetts are scrambling to find child care for the next three months.

The newsroom is collecting stories of innovative child care, and we want to hear yours. What do you do with the kids? Camp is expensive — prohibitively so for many families. My colleague Deborah Becker tells me a friend volunteered her child to wash dishes at a camp so that he could attend free. The family could only afford one or two weeks of the 12-week, multi-thousand-dollar program.

Some towns are offering public, low-cost summer programs on a first come, first served basis. Apparently the demand is so high in some places that parents queue up in the middle of the night. A quick Google search reveals Sudbury, Littleton, Franklin and Littleton are some of the towns that offer these public programs. The enrollment period is now.

Share your summer child care stories in the comments. We may like to contact you, so please leave a real e-mail address. (Your e-mail address will never be published on wbur.org.)

• @TENACITYtweet tweets: our summer #tennis & reading program is free & @ 20+ #Boston parks! Check us out: www.tenacity.org
• @nika7k tweets: taking 2 of mine on a camping trip as I teach people how to raise and milk goats sustainably