Advocacy Day Brings Light to Early Care Issues

Nearly 500 people – children, parents, teachers and early care and education advocates, arrived at the State Capitol on March 18 to urge lawmakers to protect dollars that impact their children in programs such as Head Start, Care4Kids, School Readiness, Family Resource Centers and State-Funded Centers that are directly helping thousands of children today. With them, they brought their stories of how these programs have helped them.

Clad in their bright yellow "It's About the Children" t-shirts and stickers, the groups, which traveled from all over Connecticut, met with their legislators to help them to understand what cutting funds from services such as the ones they were advocating for would mean.

There were stories such as that of a 12-year-old Meriden girl, who, thanks to her two years spent in school readiness programming at Center Preschool as a 3- and four-year-old, is a straight "A" student as a 7th grader, who aspires to attend Yale, just like her great-grandfather.

There is the single mother in Groton, who says she is grateful to Early Chilldhood Development Center in Groton for advocating for her and giving her reduced rates so that she could find another job, and feels her 3- and 5-year-old are learning so much while they attend the program.

There is a young Norwich boy, who no longer attends Voices for Families (he is a second-grader now), but wanted to come out to Advocacy Day to "speak out for the children" and wanted to show his support for his former center.

And there's the five-year-old girl in Torrington whose grandmother is currently caring for her and her kindergarten-age brother, while their mother is serving in the armed forces. Their grandmother is forever grateful for the Torrington Child Care Center for taking her under their wing and helping her through the last two tours of duty her daughter-in-law has had to serve.

There are so many stories out there that show the benefit children receive from taking part in core, critical, direct-service programs, such as Head Start, Care4Kids, School Readiness, Family Resource Centers and State Funded Child Development Centers.

Special thanks to those who submitted photos from the event. They can be seen in the pdf below.