Things you need to know—all in one place!

Child Development, Inc. is extremely grateful and excited to share some good news!  Dollar General Pottsville Fresh Facility Team Members in Schuylkill County, recently selected us for their “Thankful for You” Award (AKA:  Employee’s Choice Award) and gave us a donation of $7,500.00!   Dollar General employees voted on one of the 3 organizations that were nominated and Child Development was overwhelmingly supported by the employee votes!

Dollar General’s Thankful for You Award kicked off around Thanksgiving.  Criteria for organization selection are:

• a nonprofit, public school or public library and
• aligned with Dollar General’s focus areas of Mind, Body and Planet as defined below:
  • Mind: supporting literacy and education programs (schools, libraries, literacy organizations)
  • Body: hunger relief organizations (food banks)
  • Planet: advancing environmental efforts (planting trees, river clean-up, etc.)

You can learn about Dollar General by visiting their web page or their Facebook page.

We will use these funds for our Ready to Read, Home + School Connection Project and our children’s dental program.

Our Ready to Read, Home + School Connection Project supports children learning at home, helping them to nurture a love of reading, while building social and emotional competence.  We value parents as their child’s first and most important teacher and strongly emphasize family engagement and supportive services to our families and the community to ensure that each child enters kindergarten healthy and ready to learn and succeed. 

 The majority of the 600+ preschool age children enrolled in our program come from economically challenged families. Every day, working families struggle to make ends meet and without support; our families could lose sight of their goals. Many of our children also have chronic health conditions; receive early intervention services; and are provided support for behavioral health challenges.

With investment such as this high-quality, early childhood comprehensive programs are able to focus on school readiness.  School readiness includes: approaches to learning, social and emotional competence, early literacy and language, mathematical and scientific thinking, and physical development, as well as preventative health services for each child.  The dental kits we distribute twice a year include: a toothbrush, tooth paste, dental floss, and timer, but they are only one part of the dental health preventative services we provide.  In addition, other health services include nutrition, developmental, and mental health and wellness for the children.

“Thank you so much, Dollar General and Dollar General Team Members
for valuing the work that we do!”

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CHILD DEVELOPMENT, INC. RECIEPENT OF GRANT FROM PPL FOUNDATION – COVER TO COVER FOR READY TO READ, HOME + SCHOOL CONNECTION PROGRAM

Child Development, Inc. is pleased to announce that we are again a recipient of a $5,000 grant from The PPL Foundation’s Cover to Cover program, which helps to improve children’s literacy.  These funds will support our Ready to Read, Home + School Connection Program.

With this grant, we will be able to purchase one book per quarter (4 books per year in total) that will be given to each of the 600 children enrolled in our eight centers throughout Schuylkill County.  In addition, one book will also be added to each of our 34 classroom libraries.

These books will be distributed during parent/teacher home visits or conferences and will also be introduced in the classrooms.  Parents will be instructed on the best methods to encourage skill development and will be provided with activities to do with their 3-5-year-old child that relates to the book, for an interactive learning experience to support family literacy.  These books will be instrumental in providing each child with the foundation to begin reading and will give them a head start as they prepare for school readiness.

The COVID 19 pandemic has impacted everyone in different ways and our priority has been the mental wellness of our children, families, and team members and through their financial help we have been able to purchase books which support the social and emotional well-being of our children and their families.

Thank you, PPL, your continued financial support indicates to us that you believe in our work with young children and families in Schuylkill County.

The PPL Foundation awards annual grants through a competitive application and review process. Research confirms that the first 5 years of a child’s life are critical for the healthy development of the child’s brain. Early experiences provide the base for the brain’s organizational development and functioning throughout life.  These early experiences have a direct impact on how children develop learning skills as well as social and emotional abilities. Literacy skills are a critical component of a child’s development and are a high priority for Child Development Inc. Parents are their child’s first and most important teacher. Parents reading to their child is one of the best methods to increase the child and parent literacy skills. Without strong literacy fundamentals, students quickly fall behind in all other educational areas. Developing literacy skills as a family, helps parents develop the skills necessary to engage and guide their children through their education and career.

Through strategic partnerships, the PPL Foundation supports organizations working to create vibrant, sustainable communities; promote diversity, equity and inclusion; and empower each citizen to fulfill her or his potential. The PPL Foundation contributes more than $3 million annually to a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. 

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PPL AWARDS $25,000 GRANT FOR HEAD START WITH HAWK MOUNTAIN

Thanks to a $25,000 major grant from the PPL Foundation, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is sharing outdoor education programming with more than 600 preschool-aged children enrolled in our Head Start and PA PreK Counts classrooms. The outdoor education program expands upon lessons learned through the Sanctuary’s popular “Wee Ones” series by creating toolkits that can be used time and time again in the Child Development 34 classrooms.

Funds from the grant allowed Hawk Mountain to develop nature programs, create a toolkit of resources and hands-on materials. Next, the education team presented a teacher workshop at no cost open to all Child Development educators on how to use the materials, and for the Sanctuary’s professional educators to model one program for each classroom in all eight (8) of Child Development centers located throughout Schuylkill County.

“We’re grateful for the long-time support from PPL,” says Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Director of Development, Mary Linkevich. The project helps us to introduce nature education to hundreds of children who live near the Sanctuary but may be financially unable to visit,” she adds.

Child Development Inc. works with families and the community throughout Schuylkill County to provide a high quality, comprehensive early childhood education with an emphasis on family involvement and supportive services that prepares each child for school and a lifetime of learning. Through the grant, Hawk Mountain was able to reach Child Development’s eight centers: Tamaqua; Pottsville (2 locations); Mahanoy City; Ashland; Shenandoah; Schuylkill Haven and Saint Clair that serve more than 600 children and their families and nearly 70 professional teachers and teaching assistants.

“Our partnership with Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and the financial support from PPL for this project is amazing,” said Mary Ann Devlin, Executive Director of Child Development Inc.

“The training our teachers received was outstanding and our teachers are so grateful for the toolkits of quality resources and hands-on materials to use in their classrooms. Having the Education Team from Hawk Mountain present programs at each of our locations was a wonderful learning opportunity for both our children and teaching teams. With this funding and partnership, we opened the door for so many of our children and staff to experience nature and all that our county has to offer,” she added.

“Thank you”, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association and PPL Electric Utilities!

“We at PPL understand that decisions we make today can shape our future for generations to come,” said Carol Obando-Derstine, Regional Affairs Director for PPL Electric Utilities.

“We are proud to support Hawk Mountain for helping to introduce the topic of conservation and appreciation of wildlife to children starting at a very early age.”

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About the PPL Foundation:
Through strategic partnerships, the PPL Foundation will support organizations that are working to create vibrant, sustainable communities and empowering each citizen to fulfill her or his potential. The PPL Foundation contributes more than $3 million annually to a wide variety of nonprofit organizations. For more information, visit http://www.pplcares.com.

About Hawk Mountain Sanctuary:
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary was founded in 1934 by Rosalie Edge, a conservationist who saw the impact of overzealous raptor hunting on the Kittatinny Ridge. It occupies 2,600 acres and hosts over 60,000 visitors per year. With the help of more than 9,000 members the Sanctuary’s mission is kept alive.

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is… a scientific research center and an international conservation training site. It is also a learning facility for all ages; a wildlife sanctuary and eco-tourism destination open to the public year-round. It is also the world’s largest member-supported raptor conservation organization and one of the best places in northeastern North America to view the annual autumn hawk migration. For more information, visit https://www.hawkmountain.org/.

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TOO MUCH SCREEN TIME LINKED TO LOWER BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

“Screen time use by infants, toddlers and preschoolers has exploded over the last decade, concerning experts about the impact of television, tablets and smartphones on these critical years of rapid brain development,” writes Sandee La Motte on the cnn.com website.

She explains, “Now a new study scanned the brains of children 3 to 5 years old and found those who used screens more than the recommended one hour a day without parental involvement had lower levels of development in the brain’s white matter — an area key to the development of language, literacy and cognitive skills.”

In the book Literacy: A Beginnings Workshop Book, Leah Curry-Rood reminds us all of the importance of cultivating children’s love of reading from an early age, one way to balance the draw of screen time. She offers a number of tips for early educators and families to help aid children’s healthy literacy development. Here are just a few:

• “Read stories aloud every day, any time, any place…

• Travel with books… [This one is especially for families, as she recommends keeping a box of books in the car and letting children bring a book to look at while standing in line at grocery stores, banks etc. Early childhood educators could use this tip, also, for those (hopefully) few times when children are waiting a little bit.]

• Set up a library learning center… [This one is more for early childhood programs… she suggests actually calling it a library.]

• Encourage children to share favorite books…” [This could be with other children in an early childhood program and/or with other family members.]
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Source: “MRIs show screen time linked to lower brain development in preschoolers,” (https://www.cnn.com/…/screen-time-lower-brain-de…/index.html) by Sandee La Motte, cnn.com, November 4, 2019

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