Big Changes

Greetings

The Foundation for Early Learning is undergoing some big changes this year and I wanted to keep you updated. Garrison Kurtz, our Program Director, is leaving to take a position at the newly established Thrive by Five Washington. We will miss him tremendously. Garrison has been the Program Director at the foundation since the beginning and has been instrumental in setting the direction of our grantmaking, initiating community relationships and building community capacity through our Getting School Ready! approach.

The other big change that we are undertaking is a change in how we currently do business. At a board retreat in November, we developed a plan that will make the Foundation for Early Learning much more of a partner with the different communities in the state. We still have much to do before we unveil the completed plan but I will give you some highlights.

At the Governor's Summit conference on Early Learning held late last year, communities throughout the state said that they feel isolated and cut off from other communities and the bigger cities. In order for Washington State to have a statewide early learning system, this isolation has to be eliminated. Communities talking to other communities, sharing best practices and getting together via video conferencing, webinars and other electronic, technical and in person ways will reduce the time needed to form this statewide system. The Foundation for Early Learning will be working hard to make this happen through planning grants, technical assistance, the provision of equipment, training, fund raising assistance and consultant help. More details will be appearing in this blog and on our website-Foundation for Early Learning

We have so much information and resources available to us and our children and sometimes it takes a story from another country to make us step back and remember what we have. Recently, a former board member of the Foundation for Early Learning, Sheri Flies from Costco, was traveling in Central America. She relayed this story to me:

I was in the middle of a field in the Highlands of Guatemala last week addressing Maya families about the importance of education and family related to the sustainability work we are doing. All of a sudden I noticed that most of the children were between 2 - 5 so I gave a very simplified version of the importance of 0-5. It was quite amusing at one point because as my English was being translated to Spanish (and then again for some into Quiche, the local Mayan dialect) it came across that the children's brains would grow really big and then the heads might grow too big. Anyway after much laughter, it was clear to them what I meant and they understood and were very grateful to learn some "modern American ways". So the Foundation for Early Learning is reaching families in places and in ways we never imagined.

We have so much to be optimistic about here in Washington State re: Early Learning. The legislature is in session so now we need to keep an eye on how the budget is accepted. Testimony is already in progress so if you can go and put in a good word, that would be extremely helpful.

Let me hear from you. I would love to know what you are all doing for our youngest children.

Jeanne