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… October8,2010 Augusta, Maine News Advisory …
MAINE OFFICIALS URGED TO MAKE CHILDREN A TOP PRIORITY
Candidates for public office “Stepped Up for Kids”.
AUGUSTA, MAINE///NEWS ADVISORY//Ten candidates for public office joined children’s advocates on a school bus tour to four children’s programs in the Greater Augusta area as part of Step Up For Kids Day. The 3rd annual Step Up For Kids Day celebration was sponsored by Every Child Matters Education Fund and Maine Alliance for Children’s Care, Education and Supporting Services (ACCESS).
The day began at the State House where a Governor’s proclamation was read declaring October 5, 2010 Step Up For Kids Day in Maine. Susan Savell, who represents Communities for Children and Youth and works for the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet, serenaded the group with her song “Take a Stand for Children” as the group got ready to board the bus. Children’s advocates were on the bus, providing information about the different kinds of programs for kids in Maine, the funding, the challenges and the successes. The children’s advocates included Jan Clarkin from Maine Children’s Trust; Rita Fullerton from Child Care Options Resource Development Center; Bill Hager from Maine ACCESS; Dorothy Kozinski from PROP’s Head Start program; Jonathan Leach from the Children’s Center and Lori Freid Moses from Every Child Matters in Maine. Most importantly, advocates stressed the need to prioritize Maine’s children in these tough economic times when making difficult budgetary decisions, since kids can’t vote on behalf of themselves.
The first stop on the tour was the Hall-Dale Elementary School in Hallowell, where Superintendent Don Siviski from RSU2 and Principal Tom Leonard gave the group a brief overview of the school. The tour group was then directed to the public 4-year old classroom located at a special wing of the state-of-the-art school where candidates got on the floor and played with the children, who were adorned with Step Up For Kids t-shirts. The next stop was the Rainbow Connection family child care program owned in Farmingdale, which is owned and directed by a husband and wife team, Kathy and Michael Radlhammer. Even the baby in the snuggly was advocating for candidates to vote for kids, as the candidates learned first hand about family child care in Maine. The third stop on the tour was the Maine General Health Early Learning Center in Augusta, where the candidates played with play-doh and joined in the story reading in the preschool classroom. Julie Battersby, Director of the NAEYC-accredited child care center, spoke of the twenty-year history of the collaboration between the hospital, the senior center next door and the community. The final stop of the tour was at The Children’s Center in Augusta, which is an inclusionary program serving typically developing children along-side children with diagnosed special needs, lead by Executive Director Jonathan Leach. Jonathan shared with the group the complexity of State and Federal funding, stating that approximately 75% of the funding for this program comes from DHHS and Medicaid, while about 25% of the funding comes from the Department of Education and Child Development Services. The group were enthralled with the natural play yard which assures that children of all abilities can participate.
The group ended the tour with a press conference and reception where Augusta Mayor Roger Katz read the Governor’s Proclamation declaring October 5th as Step Up For Kids Day. Maine Children’s Growth Council members Meredith Strang Burgess and Seth Berry spoke on behalf of children and presented First Lady Karen Baldacci with a Step Up For Kids Award. The event concluded with Susan Savell, along with accompanist Larry “Flash” Allen, getting the group up on their feet with another rendition of her “Take a Stand for Children” song.
The local event is part of the wide array of “Step Up” activities taking place in some 30 states during Step Up for Kids day, October 5, 2010 and throughout the month. As people step up for kids across the nation, they will be asking officials to directly address the needs of children and families as they make their budgetary decisions and to invest in our most valuable assets.
BACKGROUND: With 15.5 million children living in poverty, 8 million without health insurance, 17 million without dental care, and 3 million reported abused or neglected in the U.S., the Every Child Matters Education Fund (ECMEF) has sponsored the annual “Step Up for Kids” week for the past three years, giving organizations and individuals a chance to celebrate their children while at the same time calling for solutions to the issues confronting them. According to the ECMEF-published Homeland Insecurity (3rd edition, 2009), the U.S. has the worst child poverty rate among 24 rich countries. Our infant mortality rate is more than double that of Japan’s. While 100 percent of France’s three- to five- year-olds are in early learning programs, only 65 percent of U.S. children benefit from such learning-readiness programs.
The Every Child Matters Education Fund is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization focused on making the needs of children and youth a national political priority and promoting the adoption of smart policies for children, youth, and families—including stopping child abuse, helping working families with child care, expanding pre-school education and after-school programs, and ensuring that children receive good health care.
Maine ACCESS (Alliance for Children’s Care, Education and Supporting Services), which co-sponsored the event, is a voluntary coalition of child care providers and allies from all over Maine. ACCESS has a well-established history as a place to focus the thoughts, ideas and concerns of those committed to the provision of quality child care services for Maine’s children and families, acting through education, communication and advocacy. ACCESS’s membership is a collaboration of people who work in or on b ehalf of the child care system in Maine.
FMI CONTACT: Bill Hager, Maine ACCESS, billhager@ccsyc.org; or Lori Freid Moses, Every Child Matters in Maine, lmoses@everychildmatters.org.
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