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Bill Stritzler, the managing director of Smugglers’ Notch Resort chairman of the Vermont Business Roundtable, spoke on a radio show addressing the issues of early childhood education as being a great predictor of future economic success.  He suggests that by investing in early childhood education, will be a serious pay out in the long run that makes the investment financially worth it.  He states “ Businesses need public policies that support development of next generation jobs in order to continue leading and innovating.”

http://www.vpr.net/episode/48995/

On July 6, 2010 HMESF made our third donation, in a series of small, meaningful grants.  We asked our partnering centers to provide us with some information about the programs and/or projects they anticipated for the upcoming year that will serve children from birth to three years of age.   Specifically, asked the centers to identify and briefly describe initiatives that we may support, in whole or in part, as well as an estimated budget for the initiative.  We supported the following initiatives:

• Safe Horizon- Queens Oasis Children’s Reading Corner,
• Help Morris Infant/toddler programs and parent education,
• Riverside Montessori School- Infant Gym: For children ages 3 mos to 2 yrs.
• Sunshine Learning Center- school supplies.
• Jackson Avenue Family Residence- Bronxworks, in support of the early learning program- educational books, games, a field trip to promote early learning.
• Women In Need- After School Program, Therapeutic Childcare, Camp Win, and Kid Sista.  
• Henry Street Settlement- -will be hiring additional Music and Arts Specialists, who will work with our two and three-year old daycare students once a week and help them get a better start and grasp of these necessary and often underfunded educational elements,
• Lenox Hill Neighborhood House- Using it to support Parent Engagement program which is vital to the social, emotional and academic development of children
• Kennedy child Study Center-  to support equipment for a sensory gym.  The center believes that each child regardless of ability is capable of further growth and achievement,
• Union Settlement- (2 locations) to fund music programs.

On June 9^th, HMESF had their spring happy hour at Gallery Bar.  Despite the inclement weather the event was very successful.   The funds raised went towards our third grant donation to our 13 partnering centers to support efforts to improve the quality of early childhood care and education in New York City. 

NYC public advocates are asking Mayor Bloomberg to reverse severe budget cuts that will eliminate 6,000 child care seats in New York City. 

Cuts like these are forcing parents, mostly working mothers, to choose between their work and their families.  Times are tough and parents want to provide for their families and they are being asked to make really tough choices.  In some cases when they are forced to stay home to look after their children, their only choice is to seek public assistance.

“Preserving New York City's capacity to provide high quality early childhood education is essential for parents to be able to support their families in this troubled economy while also preparing young children for school success,” Executive Director of Citizens' Committee for Children, Jennifer March-Joly said. “New York City's working parents need more child care, not less.”

There are a lot of sad things going on in the world.  We really have to sacrifice for the sake of our children.  When we make cuts with regard to childcare and education, we're really doing a major disservice to our children and their future.  I hope there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we hope there are more organizations like us that can step up and fill the voids being created by our government.

T.O.P.S for you: Resource materials for training of staff. The money used will train staff for the on-site nursery as well as for family day care providers.

Kennedy Child Study Center: During the School week, nearly 99% of the children in the program receive speech therapy and 80% receive physical and occupational therapies.  With the money the therapists will set up a lending library of therapeutic equipment so that the work that takes place at the center can be reinforced in the home.

Union Settlement Association: Start the Music program is an introductory music program for 18-20 of the three year old children.  Through lively sessions, they will learn basic rhythms and movement and take part in age-appropriate hands-on lessons with musical instruments and singing.  The belief is that the benefits of such a program- music instruction has been showed to contribute to “school readiness assisting in cognitive development, memory, fine motor skills and more- will be immense.

Women in Need: Women In Need is one of the few agencies that provide childcare in conjunction with its services.  WIN provides a safe, emotionally responsive environment for children of all ages at nine sites- seven WIN transitional shelters and at two outpatient substance abuse treatment centers.  WIN knows that the welfare of children and the knowledge on how to care for children is central to the success of the family unit.  Helping mothers nurture their children is the primary focus of the childcare programs.

Help Morris Early Childcare Program: Subscriptions to educational magazines and book clubs for staff and Scholastic Weekly Reader and National Geographic selections for kids

Safe Horizon- Lily House: Read To Me Class that meets once a week in a relaxed and playful environment, with children & parents.  The program will have a strong language based pedagogy that will help lay the foundation for speaking and reading as well as to promote positive mother-child interaction.  Through age appropriate books, stories and fun play, the class will provide joyful learning opportunities in the areas of vocabulary development, number sense, social-emotional development and listening

Riverside Montessori School: a) Dramatic Play supports children’s language, social-emotional development, creativity and problem solving skills.  A space to be created in the gym that provides children with these experiences.  Includes child-sized pretend materials.

b) Help children develop their scientific minds through exploration and observation.  Provide children with books, photos and artifacts/small models related to nature and animals.  Intent is to create one nature box for teachers to share.  The box would contain a collection of different topic related materials.