By Michelle Smith Howard, President & CEO, Kids’ First Years
Alexandria, VA – School Readiness is a term that describes the capabilities of children, their families, schools and communities to best promote student success in kindergarten and beyond. Quite simply, preparing young children to succeed and thrive in kindergarten requires the essential components of ready children, ready families, ready schools and, ready communities.
What is a Ready Community?
The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) defines a Ready Community as one that plays a crucial part in supporting families in their role as primary stewards of their children’s readiness. Ready communities include businesses, faith-based organizations, early childhood service providers, community groups and local governments. These all work together to support children’s school and long-term success by providing families with affordable access to information, services, high-quality child care, and enriching early learning opportunities.
The VDOE also explains that a Ready Community promotes collaboration to reach the most vulnerable children and families through diverse channels of communication by supporting effective, innovative strategies, and building a sustainable, comprehensive system that maximizes available resources.
Here in Alexandria, Kids’ First Years (KFY) is a collective impact initiative dedicated to supporting the unified system of organizations in this city that collaborate to provide early care and education services for the city’s young children and their families.
“A crucial component of this systems building effort is the public-private partnership,” said Lori Morris, President of the Bruhn-Morris Family Foundation (BMFF). “The public dollars are supporting direct service provision which leaves limited funding to support other elements of the system – this is where philanthropy is key.”
Morris, a founding member of KFY and career educator, shared that her family’s foundation, the Bruhn-Morris Family Foundation, was established 30 years ago to invest in research and innovation that strengthen early childhood education in Alexandria. The foundation actively engages with public and private entities to support synergies and economic efficiencies designed to make a significant difference in the lives of young children and their families.
“A Ready Community brings together a wide variety of organizations from the entire city to support parents with the healthy physical, mental, social and emotional growth of their children,” said Morris. “Kids’ First Years serves as the backbone of Alexandria’s commitment to creating a strong early childhood system and a ready community, and it needs the support of the community to sustain the work.”
One way the Alexandria community can support the early care and education system is by donating during Spring2ACTion, the citywide day of giving. Many of KFY’s partner organizations will be raising funds to support their respective organizations, and KFY will be raising money to support citywide initiatives.
KFY will also be sponsoring a leaderboard for early care and education partners, thanks to a donation from BMFF. “This is a way of highlighting and supporting KFY partners who exemplify the concept of a Ready Community here in Alexandria” said Ellen Kennedy Folts, Chief Executive Officer of the Bruhn-Morris Family Foundation. “Spring2ACTion includes many terrific organizations. We felt a Spring2ACTion leaderboard would help elevate early childhood during Alexandria’s Day of Giving and be a visual representation of the collaboration happening on behalf of Alexandria’s youngest children.”
The KFY partners who will be raising funds through Spring2ACTion are:
• The Campagna Center
• The Center for Alexandria’s Children
• The Child and Family Network Centers
• Hopkins House
• Neighborhood Health
• Northern Virginia Family Service
“Everything we do is about helping kids reach their full potential, and there’s so much opportunity to have an impact on a child’s development during the early years from ages 0-5,” said Morris. “We envision a strong, sustainable commitment to early childhood education in Alexandria. Working together is better for the whole community.”
To learn more about how you can support our collective early care and education system, visit kidsfirstyears.org/donate/. If you would like to donate to the Spring2ACTion campaign, visit www.spring2action.org/organizations/kids-first-years beginning March 26th.
Mark Your Calendar
April 9th is Spring2ACTion: Alexandria’s Giving Day, presented by ACT for Alexandria. It’s one extraordinary day to celebrate our city’s collective spirit of giving and to support the organizations that make Alexandria a vibrant place for everyone. Kids’ First Years is proud to be a Leaderboard Sponsor of this initiative because our community is better when we give together. Visit Spring2Action.org for more details.
ICYMI: Alexandria Sportsman’s Club Honors 10 Student-Athletes
