Entries For: January 2009

The Foundation for Early Learning's 2009 Leadership Luncheon is just weeks away on March 6th.  When I started at the Foundation two months ago, much of the planning was already in place – including our keynote speaker.  The theme of this year’s event is invest in children and our speaker is the perfect person for such an event.

Andrea Levere is from CFED (Corporation for Enterprise Development) in Washington, D.C. and I had the opportunity to meet with her in person just recently.  While her credentials and experience may sound technical, her passion and commitment for creating a world where everyone has a strong future, is incredibly inspiring and very relatable. 

She is behind the idea of SEED, a multi-year national initiative to test and promote matched savings accounts and financial education for children.  Her organization has developed many creative economic development opportunities that help individuals start and grow businesses, go to college, own a home, and save for their children’s and their own economic futures.  It is hard to deny that a strong future for children and families is so closely tied together to economic security.

I am also looking forward to meeting the 600 friends and supporters who attend.  And I’m especially excited that our 600 friends and supporters have the opportunity to RSVP online – makes the registration process much easier and time-efficient for the staff (a.k.a., me). 

Visit the luncheon page at www.earlylearning.org/luncheon for more juicy details and I’ll see you on March 6th!

Jessica

The Foundation is delighted to feature a guest blog post from our partner Nancy Leahy from the Circle of Success ®, whose Let's Read ~Imagination Library program continues to successfully improve school readiness for children since its launch in 2005!

If you are interested in being featured in the Foundation's blog, please contact joel@earlylearning.org.

Good Deeds in Tough Times Improve Early Literacy!

We have a story to tell!  It is a great story about good deeds happening in tough times.  It is a story about moving communities forward by preparing 3,200 children to be ready for school.  It is a story about a generous public and committed service clubs who have filled sixty kindergartens with Imagination Library graduates in just three years. This story tells of book-magic for little kids and support of young parents. The story recounts a program of promise - and a program with proof.  It is a story happening here in the Yakima and Kittitas Valleys right now.  It is also a story about never stopping.

Support from businesses and community champions of literacy are vital in improving the school readiness of today’s children in the Yakima and Kittitas Valleys.  Let’s Read was launched in 2005 with a $225,000 grant from the Foundation for Early Learning's Yakima Children's Fund. We then received sustained support from Foundation for Early Learning's Yakima Children’s Fund with a $375,000 match fund gift project that has gone from 2006 through 2008.  Generous community contributions, and matching dollars from the Foundation for Early Learning, support the Let’s Read enrollment of children aged zero to 5 years.  These valued business and service club contributors believe in the facts of early brain development and early education.   The children are mailed an age appropriate book every month until the age of 5.

Circle of Success manages the Let’s Read program which is a community early literacy program that includes the Imagination Library, Newborn Baby Packets and a quarterly newsletter. The enrollment of one child, for one year, is an investment of $60 and it is available to every child in the Yakima and Kittitas Valleys Valley at no cost to the family. The Circle of Success, Inc.® Let’s Read program includes the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in which an age-appropriate book is delivered every month.  These programs were constructed using recent research on early child development and they support the position of parents as the primary teacher of their children.  A child is sponsored for one year in Imagination Library for just $5 per month!  It is supported by generous contributions from Yakima Valley businesses and community champions of literacy.

 

Meet the 2008 Let’s Read children receiving a book every month!  The children include:

• 575 of the children are 2008 babies. 
• 90 of the children are foster children.  
• 90 of the children live in the Kittitas Valley.
• 1,920 children live in English speaking homes and 1,280 children in Spanish speaking homes.
• 322 children live in Toppenish, 236 live in Sunnyside, 186 live in Grandview and 1,255 live in Yakima – and the list continues.
• We hear from children every day who are eager to enroll in the program! 
  

We are thrilled with the 2008 Let’s Read program outcomes!

• The program began in July 2005 with 115 children and there are currently 3,217  children enrolled in the program. 
• There are 1,440 Imagination Library graduates for Let's Read.  This means Circle of Success has filled 60 kindergarten classrooms with Imagination Library graduates! 
• 15% of the preschool children in the Yakima Valley are now enrolled in the Imagination Library.   
• It is a very Special Delivery! A total of 130 styling salons in the Yakima and Kittitas valleys are displaying the Let’s Read Special Delivery flyer which asks parents, grandparents and everyone to read to young children and support program enrollment.  
• These are local funds supporting local children.  No state or federal funds have been received. Hundreds of community members in the Yakima and Kittitas Valleys have partnered with the Foundation for Early Learning to contribute to this local effort in order to support local children. 
  

We know these are tough times – and yet tough times can make room for new thinking.  That new thinking is Let’s Read. 

For Let’s Read program information, or to make a donation to the Circle of Success Let’s Read program, contact the Circle of Success® office at 469.9888 or 1.888.973.7323
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Circle of Success, Inc is a private, nonprofit 501-c-3 organization that empowers parents to prepare their children to enter school ready to learn.  Circle of Success manages the Let’s Read~ Imagination Library program in the community in order to put children’s books into the homes of young children.

“Empowering parents to prepare their child to enter school ready to learn”

P.O. Box 1291      15 North Naches Ave.    Yakima, WA   98901    509.469.9888 www.circleofsuccessinc.org

When the staff suggested that I write an introductory blog to put on the site, my face immediately gleamed with enthusiasm. Blogging is a passion of mine, but I've never blogged for a large and sophisticated audience before so this opportunity excites and terrifies me at the same time... So make of this what you will, but I promise to return next time with more audacity and interesting/informative materials to share about early learning! :)

I must admit I'm absolutely delighted to join the Foundation for Early Learning and its wonderful staff for the next 10 weeks as a Communications Intern to assist with various communication projects and responsibilities. With great appreciation to the Foundation for granting me this opportunity, I plan to use it as a learning experience and to perform every task to the best of my ability. Yes. But okay, enough about me. Little precious babies are way more interesting and important and they are probably why you're here. So without further ado, here are a few fun baby facts Google'd and assembled by me earlier today. I hope you’ll enjoy them: 

1. Men are the quickest at changing a baby's diaper.  Some have been timed to take just over a 1 minute while some research has shown women can take over 2 (or 3 or 4 or 5...) minutes.
2. The largest number of children born to one woman is recorded at 69.
3. Women who eat fish during pregnancy can increase their baby's brain development as well as provide them with better communication skills.
4. Aerosols and air fresheners may cause stomach and ear discomfort in babies.
5. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the orders that made Mother's Day a national holiday.
6. Babies are born with 300 bones, but because some bones eventually fuse together, adults only have 206 bones.
7. Playing classical music, especially Mozart, will increase babies' intelligence.
8. Reading to your child (at any age) will increase their knowledge...
9. Visiting the Foundation of Early Learning's website often will increase your knowledge... especially our news and events sections
10. The Foundation loves hearing your blog comments, fundraising ideas...

Over the past couple of weeks I have been fascinated with the 2008 baby name lists. After reading a few of the lists I decided this is too good and it needs to make the blog. 

Reading that Wmffre (boys name pronounced ‘oom-fre’) and Eithne (pronounced ITH-nee) made Parenting.com’s list of most clicked on names I had to see the rest of the list. I was a little disappointed to see that the rest of the list had more “traditional” names. Barack did make their boys list at number 28. I’m waiting to meet my first baby Barack or baby Obama, McCain, Clinton, Palin, or baby Biden. I have met a few Regans and a Nixon but they were named before those presidents were voted into office.

The year has been filled with babies born to celebs: Sunday Rose, daughter of Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman (even though she was born on a Monday, it is widely reported that Sunday was named after an artist), Knox and Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, twins of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale son of Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, and Bronx Mowgli Wentz, son of Ashlee Simpson-Wentz and Pete Wentz. Vivienne or the alternate spelling of Vivian might rocket upward on the 2009 name list, but I’m not sure about Zuma or Sunday will find the same public acceptance.

So what is the rest of America naming their children? What names will hear next on the playground and see in Kindergarten classrooms? BabyNames.com has Aiden, Ethan, and Noah in the top spots for boys. Ava, Isabella, and Madeline were the top three names for girls. The website claims these are predictions of future naming trends, as most of their members are currently pregnant and thinking of baby names. Other names that made the top 100 were Evelyn, Sydney, Faith, Sadie, and Madison for girls. On the boys side Oliver, Jasper, Joel, Chase, and Blake made the list.

Bennett, Kailyn Adriana, Ethan, Sophia, Koen, Datta, and Yui are babies of friends born in 2008. It should be noted that globalization has also been an influence in some of the naming choice made by my friends.

What names will 2009 bring?