Sponsor Spotlight: Tammy Urich with Butte 4-C’s
Sponsor of family child care homes
August 17, 2026
Tammy Urich is the CACFP Coordinator at Butte 4-C’s, a Resource and Referral agency in Montana. Butte 4-C’s has been supporting their community since 1974 and the CACFP was the second program that they started under their umbrella. Currently, Butte 4-C’s also offers programs for family support, home visiting, parenting education, child welfare, supervised education, and child care support and professional development. The CACFP remains an integral part of their agency, as Butte 4-C’s sponsors 94 family and group child care homes serving over 1,500 children across the Southwest half of the state.
Tammy just celebrated her ninth anniversary with Butte 4-C’s, where she loves her job and brings enthusiasm to each day. Before her career as a CACFP sponsor, Tammy worked as a teacher for over 20 years, until deciding to retire and look for something new. After learning that her daughter was due with twins, Tammy started looking into child care options and the early care space. This led Tammy to take an opportunity in a family home where they exclusively cared for infants.
The family home that she worked at was an operator of the CACFP and Butte 4-C’s was their Sponsor. Tammy’s experience as a family home provider is beneficial for her ability to build relationships with the providers she now oversees. With her understanding of the daily challenges that family home providers face, Tammy is able to relate to her providers and provide support.
“There are things throughout the day that each provider has come up unexpectedly. The most important thing is making sure the children are taken care of and safe. The providers under my sponsorship know that I have been in the trenches as a child care provider too, and that has helped us build a rapport.”
In order to build strong relationships with their providers, Tammy and her assistant make themselves available as much as possible. Tammy ensures that they know her door is always open and she is just a phone call away if they need anything. Tammy also helps out where she can while on her monitoring visits. She recalls an instance where a provider had to send their helper home early due to sickness, so Tammy jumped in to help care for the children until another helper arrived.
By building trust with her providers, Tammy is laying a foundation for compliance. From her perspective, once providers trust their monitor and see that the monitor is coming from a place of understanding, they will be willing and ready to participate in the program and meet all CACFP requirements. Tammy also provides multiple trainings throughout the year to ensure her providers are set up for success and up to date on all program requirements.
“I take pride in the trainings I provide. A lot of my providers told me they enjoy my trainings and they’ve learned so much. My dad is a retired produce manager, and I brought him in as a trainer with me and we talked about fruits and vegetables. Providers across the state still talk about it and say it was one of the best trainings they’ve ever had.”
The nutrition education that providers and the children they serve receive through the CACFP is one of the many benefits Tammy has seen the CACFP has on the family homes she sponsors. For example, Tammy recently encouraged all her sites to try Family Style Meal Service. While her providers were hesitant at first, many of them have implemented Family Style and have seen the children’s independence and curiosity grow. Providers have reported that less food goes to waste and kids are helping clean up after themselves and wanting to help in the kitchen.
In addition to the nutrition education, the food and nutrition security ensured through the CACFP is also a huge benefit to children and their families. Tammy knows that families are struggling financially and there is uncertainty about what type or amount of food they can provide at home. Through the CACFP, families can feel confident that their children are not only receiving meals but receiving meals that meet their nutritional needs for the day.
“For the programs that are participating in the CACFP, the program helps them to offset their food costs. It doesn’t cover all of their food costs, but it helps tremendously. We don’t know what the kids are getting at home. A lot of the time, parents drop their kids off at 7 a.m. and may not be picking them up until 6 p.m. So, the children are receiving most of their main meals at these facilities. It’s important for providers to be able to serve those meals and have the funding to do so.”
The CACFP is also a financial support for family child care homes as well. Even though the reimbursement does not cover all food costs, it helps providers operate within a slim budget and can even be the reason why providers are able to keep their business running. This is why Tammy continues to stay committed to the CACFP.
“I want to do my part to help support the providers as much as I can so their doors stay open and they can provide a healthy environment and healthy foods for those kids. That’s my motivation every day to get up. I love to get out in the field, I love to see the kids, I love to see the providers, and I love every aspect of my job.”
Tammy is grateful for Butte 4-C’s for their commitment to CACFP as well and is excited to grow their work. In fact, for Fiscal Year 2027, Tammy is planning to apply to begin sponsoring child care centers as well. The team at Butte 4-C’s is excited to expand access to the program and ensure that as many providers as possible are able to participate so that the children they serve get to benefit from healthy, nutritious meals.
In Montana, Tammy has been with Butte 4-C's since 2017.