The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) puts out a electronic newsletter called Child Care Aware of America. This is the national website that I have chosen to follow for this course. In the May 22, 2013 edition, there was an article about Toyota Car Company partnering with the National Family Literacy Center to do a six year $175,000 grant to create a new literacy model that will expand it beyond the walls of the classroom and into homes and communities. This reminds me of a grant that I have been involved with from the Kellogg Foundation (the cereal people), and I had always just assumed that it was philanthropic of them to put money into a grant for early childhood, but I am beginning to see in terms of economic benefits. If companies such as Toyota and Kellogg put money into early childhood, those children will grow to be consumers of their products. I was also interested this week when North Carolina announced that they would be losing Smart Start funding that business leaders came to their defense. Tsegga Medhin, Manager at IBM (Raleigh); Bill Millett, President of Scope View Strategic Advantage (Charlotte) and Steve Reinemund, Retired Chairman and CEO at PepsiCo (Winston-Salem) were among the company leaders that signed a letter encouraging the Governor of North Carolina not to cut the funds. I think it is wonderful that people with clout, like those company heads listed above, are understanding that early childhood is important. We have talked in other discussions this week about the unintended consequences of economists becoming involved with early childhood-but one of the good consequences of big business getting involved is that programs have higher quality, and that is also good for all kids!
The Child Care Aware Newsletter had several interesting topics in it this week, including one on helping children cope with disaster. My daughter lives about 1/2 hour from Moore, OK and, although the children in the child care center where she works were not hurt, this tragedy is affecting them directly. I appreciate the electronic newsletter format because the articles in it are so much more timely than the paper forms, and can really help children, families, and early childhood professionals when they need it!
Resources:
http://CCAoA@multibriefs.com
http://info@first2000days.org
Hi Carolyn, Thank you for posting about these companies that support early childhood education. I had never knew of such programs. But as educators its great to know these companies therefore, we too can be supportive of their company and products. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies seems to be a great website with valuable information. I am definitely going to check it out. Thanks for sharing your web sources. -Shavonne
ReplyDeleteInteresting, because I have never considered that companies support early childhood programs because one day those children will grow up and become paying consumers. Whatever the reason, I appreciate the support for our children and their educations.
ReplyDeleteHi Carolyn! I enjoyed reading you post. This was all new and interesting to me. I had never heard of these organizations. I will definitely be going under these websites to learn more from them.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
Erika
I like your thought process that when companies like Toyota and Kellogg invest money in early care they are looking at the future returns to them when these children grow up to purchase products from them. I definitely feel that whatever their reason for investing it the right thing to do. Good resource in NACCRRA they do good work.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting Carolyn I did not know that, about Kellogg and Toyota. You know we have been talking about these type of investments this week and I don't understand why do companies look for investments back. To me the biggest investment is when the child succeeds and in return they are able to help someone else. It was very interesting to hear this information. Rachel Hendrix
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