NEWS from GEEARS: Strolling Thunder 2020, Speaker Series Event, New Video, and more!

Holiday Greetings from Mindy

Friends,

Thank you for supporting GEEARS throughout 2019. This year, you continued to help us inspire investments in high-quality early learning and healthy development for Georgia’s youngest children by championing policies, promoting innovative and evidence-based practices, and building public will. Whether you attended our events, responded to an action alert, read with a young child, shared the Quality Rated website, made a contribution, or engaged with us on social media, you helped us make a difference.

The support of our Board of Directors, staff members, partners, and you has allowed us make great strides to achieve our mission. Some highlights from the year include:

Strengthening relationships with partners and communities around the state
Co-hosting multiple events focused on the economic impact of child care challenges in Georgia
Convening the Mayor’s Summer Reading Club for a 7^th summer with over 50 partners to distribute 15,000 books to children
Collaborating with leaders in Atlanta to develop a new early childhood initiative, PAACT (Promise All Atlanta Children Thrive)
Bringing babies and families from across the state to meet their elected officials at Strolling Thunder
Hosting the Early Learning and Healthy Development Bus Journey to expose business leaders, policymakers, community leaders, and early childhood education & health leaders to innovative early learning and care, business & community engagement initiatives, and healthy development interventions throughout the state of Georgia.
Publishing impactful reports like Advancing Opportunity: Parents’ Solutions for Georgia’s Child Care Challenges
Training over 50 new community advocates to join the Atlanta Early Education Ambassadors
Working closely with members of the House Study Committee to explore challenges and solutions to improve the social-emotional health of infants and toddlers
Leading a statewide public awareness campaign for Quality Rated
Publishing multiple research briefs and fact sheets
Convening the Georgia Infant-Toddler Coalition with over 70 individuals from 35 diverse organizations to work together to elevate the needs of Georgia’s infants and toddlers

Our 9^th year as an organization has been an amazing journey and I am pleased to see how we’ve grown as a team. We look forward to sharing more details about our 2019 milestones in our annual report that will be released in early 2020.

We are excited and ready to continue our advocacy during the upcoming Georgia General Assembly legislative session, and achieving further progress on initiatives and policies that support all of Georgia’s youngest learners and their families. We’ll continue to need your support to achieve our goals for young children that will have an impact on our state for the years beyond 2020.

Have a happy and safe holiday season,

Mindy

Please consider supporting GEEARS’ advocacy efforts by making a donation that will support Georgia’s earliest learners and their families. Your tax-deductible donation supports our work as early childhood advocates and the leaders of this movement.

MAKE A DONATION TO GEEARS

Join us for Strolling Thunder 2020 – January 27^th

On Monday, January 29, 2020, GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students, in partnership with ZERO TO THREE, will bring babies and parents from around Georgia to meet their elected officials during Strolling Thunder.

We’re coming together for advocacy training, Capitol visits, and roundtable discussions so families can tell their stories about the joys and challenges of raising infants and toddlers in Georgia. We want Georgia's leadership to Think Babies—for stronger families, vibrant communities, and a prosperous state.

During this fun-filled day, we will have breakfast, advocacy training, visits with our legislators at the Capitol, lunch, giveaways, a photo booth, and more! Your infants and toddlers are invited to attend this event with you.

Families that attend for the entire event will receive a gift card for participation. Breakfast and lunch will also be provided.

View the Strolling Thunder 2019 video recap, here.

Click here to register for Strolling Thunder 2020

Upcoming Speaker Series Event – February 6^th

GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students, invites you to lunch and another installment of the Speaker Series, Conversations on Early Childhood, featuring Josh Levs, the award-winning author and leading global expert on modern fathers, gender-equity, and making a better workplace for employees and businesses . Join us, policymakers, and other business leaders at the Buckhead Club to hear how a range of family-friendly policies can help attract top talent, keep it, and help our economy thrive.

Thursday, February 6th, 2020
11:30AM - 1:00PM
Buckhead Club
3344 Peachtree Rd Ste. 2600
Atlanta, GA 30326
Tickets: $20

Seated lunch served at 11:45AM.
Free parking available.

Proceeds for this event will go to support GEEARS' advocacy efforts for all of Georgia's young children and families.

Click here to register for the Speaker Series

NEW VIDEO: Advancing Opportunity: Parents’ Solutions to Child Care Challenges

We partnered with the Metro Atlanta Chamber and Consume Media to create a video version of our new report, the latest installment of the Opportunities Lost series, Advancing Opportunity: Parents’ Solutions to Child Care Challenges. This video presents both child care challenges that working families face and potential solutions for policymakers, employers, and higher education.

Click here to view the video

Click here to view the new report

Click here to explore the entire Opportunities Lost series

Important Updates on Final FY2020 Appropriations

Earlier this week, the House passed the FY2020 Labor/HHS bill as part of a package of “minibus” bills to fully fund the government. We expect the Senate to pass the bill and the President to sign it. The bill includes significant increases for CCDBG, Head Start, and the Preschool Development Grants, totaling over $1.1 billion.

· $550 million increase for Child Care and Development Block Grants (CCDBG)

· $550 million for Head Start

· $25 million for Preschool Development Grants (PDG)

· $76 million increase for teacher professional development grants (Title II)

· $40 million increase for Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants (Title IV)

· $20 million increase for Career and Technical Education State Grants

· Several increases for existing programs totaling $123 million to highlight support for social emotional learning (SEL) and “whole child” approaches to education.

As members head home for the holiday break, please reach out to their offices to thank them for this investment.

Click here to find you legislators

GEEARS Awarded Grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta

GEEARS is excited to announce that we have received a new grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta to support Get Out the Vote (GOTV) and Get Out the Count (GOTC) activities in 2020. Through this new grant, GEEARS will be working to ensure that young children and the professionals who serve them are fairly represented in all levels of government. This grant was made possible by the Community Foundation's Public Policy Fund.

As we work to serve Georgia’s youngest children and their families, it’s important that we collect their stories to learn more about what they need. It’s helpful to have the ability to share family’s personal accounts and testimonies with change makers when we’re advocating on their behalf. We’re happy to introduce a new segment of our newsletter, “A Family’s Perspective.”

“If you need to have help while you [attend] a four-year college, then once you’re on your feet and you’ve achieved that goal, you’re able to give back and help other people.”

- Atlanta mom on how expanding CAPS eligibility to include parents going to college/university can help families thrive.

Did you know your Amazon purchases can help support the work we do at GEEARS? Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible Amazon Smile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice.

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Copyright © 2019 GEEARS, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
GEEARS: Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students
3400 Peachtree Road NE.
Suite 921
Atlanta, GA 30326

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Holiday Greetings from Mindy

Upcoming Speaker Series Event – February 6th

Upcoming Speaker Series Event – February 6^th