The W.K. Kellogg Foundation recently announced three new grants to expand access to high-quality early care and education for children in the District of Columbia.
“There are close to 2,000 children in the District of Columbia who lack access to early education programs, and that demand is growing,” said Sterling Speirn, the president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in a news release. “It is encouraging to see these three organizations working to increase access to quality, early education for children in our nation’s capital, which ultimately can be national models for key national stakeholders to see, visit, and understand the needs of vulnerable children in a more concrete way.”
The Kellogg Foundation is contributing a $5 million, two-year grant to Bounce DC to open a new Educare school that will serve 175 low-income children and families in the Parkside neighborhood.
Bounce DC is working with local partners to help transform the local community into a DC Promise Neighborhood, modeled after the New York Harlem Children’s Zone.
With a one-year, $300,000 grant, the advocacy group Pre K for All DC will work to build a model system of early care and quality education for all children in the District of Columbia from birth to 5. Part of its mission will be to encourage the city’s leadership to understand the educational and economic benefits to providing universal access to quality preschool.
The advocacy group, DC Action for Children, will receive a two-year, $400,000 grant to provide broad access to quality education for all of the District’s children from birth to 8. The organization will work to address the need for stronger, more coordinated, and comprehensive early care and education programs that will improve school readiness.