8 Firms Pledge $600,000 for Dependent Care

Eight major corporations--none of them locally based--unveiled plans to invest more than $600,000 in projects to improve child-care and elder-care services in Los Angeles and Orange counties. This represents the initial local funding from the American Business Collaboration for Quality Dependent Care, a nationwide coalition of 22 companies that two years ago pledged to invest more than $100 million in dependent-care programs around the country. The $600,000 in funding for the first year will be devoted primarily to helping the 32,000 Southern California employees of the eight partners: AT&T;, BankAmerica, Chevron, Deloitte & Touche, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Price Waterhouse and Texaco. But some of the projects will also benefit the community, with the coalition predicting that services will be provided for up to 13,000 children and nearly 1,000 elderly people.