RALEIGH – This week, drivers and pedestrians in six markets across North Carolina are seeing powerful new billboards that underscore the need for paid leave and affordable child care for all families. The billboards, in prominent locations in Asheville, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Wilmington, and Winston-Salem, are sponsored by the NC Families Care Coalition. The coalition represents more than two dozen diverse organizations advocating for family-friendly workplace policies for working North Carolinians and their families, including paid sick and safe days, paid family medical and parental leave, and pregnancy accommodations. NC Families Care will support the 60-day billboard campaign with paid social media over the course of the next four weeks.

Each billboard rotates three messages:

We shouldn’t have to choose between a paycheck & our families. Paid leave now.

Working families need paid leave and child care.

Help NC go back to work and support small businesses. Paid leave and child care now.

They are designed to raise awareness about the policies and investments families and small businesses in the state need to recover from the ongoing pandemic, which has created unprecedented hardship and dislocation across North Carolina and the country. As COVID-19 has spread, tens of thousands of North Carolinians have been sickened and killed, schools have closed, jobs have disappeared, family caregiving needs have increased, and women have been disproportionately pushed out of the jobs they need to support their families. The programs and policies that can help are especially relevant as Congress considers creating the country’s first national paid leave program and making badly needed, historic investments in child care.

Their locations:

Asheville

• 627 Smokey Park Hwy, Candler (viewable from the westbound lane of US 19/23/Smokey Park, on the right-hand side)

• I-26 (viewable from the westbound lane of I-26, 0.6 miles before the exit for Brevard Rd, on the left-hand side)

• I-26 (viewable from the eastbound lane of I-26, 0.3 miles before the Butler Bridge Overpass, on the right-hand side) 

Charlotte

• I-85 (viewable from the southbound lane of the highway, 0.35 miles before the exit for Derita Rd/N. Graham St., on the right-hand side of the road)

• I-85 (viewable from the southbound lane of the highway, 0.8 miles before the exit for Statesville Ave., on the right-hand side of the road)

• I-85 (viewable from the southbound lane of the highway, 0.8 miles before the exit for Billy Graham Pkwy, on the left-hand side of the road)

• I-85 (viewable from the northbound lane of the highway, 0.3 miles past the exit for Billy Graham Pkwy, on the right-hand side of the road)

Fayetteville

• 2785 Owen Dr. (viewable from the eastbound lane of Owen as you cross Camden Rd. heading towards Southern Ave., on the left-hand side of the road)

Greensboro

• I-40/I-85 (viewable from the eastbound lane of I-40, 0.8 miles past exit 135 for Rock Creek Dairy, on the right-hand side of the road)

• I-40 (viewable from the eastbound lane of I-40, 0.1 miles past Gallimore Dairy Rd., right-hand side of the road)

Wilmington

• 5216 Oleander Dr. (viewable from the westbound lane of Oleander as you approach Hawthorne, on the left-hand side of the road)

Winston-Salem

• I-40 Bus/421 near (viewable from the eastbound lane of 421, 0.32 miles past exit 6C for Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, on the right-hand side of the road)

• US 52 near Piedmont Park (viewable from the northbound lane of US 52 as you approach N. Liberty St., on the left-hand side of the road)