
Give or Volunteer!
Get Involved in the Community: Give or volunteer!
Support an early learning center in your neighborhood. Sponsor an event in your community promoting early literacy, children’s health, or support for parents of young children. Business leaders can partner with their local Early Learning Coalition to define and support the needs of the community.
- The purpose of the Early Learning Coalitions is to develop, implement, and monitor the School Readiness and Voluntary Prekindergarten Programs to ensure that Florida's youngest citizens receive quality, comprehensive early learning services appropriate to their needs.
- Partnering with your local Early Learning Coalition results in community prosperity and serves to expand that prosperity into the business sector. The Children’s Movement serves in facilitating these partnerships between businesses and ELCs as a mutual effort in creating positive change for children and families.
- Companies might be interested in:
- Adopting a child care center
- Subsidizing child care vouchers
- Providing parenting classes at the workplace
- Sending newsletters about early childhood development
- Sponsoring a child care classroom
- Sponsoring an early childhood community event
- Providing passes for family-friendly events
Employers Making a Difference
ReadingPals is a program created and funded by The Children’s Movement but implemented through the United Way throughout Florida. There are 25 counties that have United Ways that administer ReadingPals. ReadingPals is a program that is hosted in an educational setting (e.g., school, library), where a volunteer goes once a week for a whole year to read to a child that is struggling with reading.
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ReadingPals - The United Way
PNC Bank’s Grow Up Great Program is a bilingual initiative at PNC Bank that since 2004 has granted $192 million to early childhood organizations, serving 7 million children. PNC also allows each employee to have 40 hours per year of paid volunteer hours (serving more than 995,000 hours)! In addition, PNC Bank has a $10 million joint initiative with DonorsChoose.org that provides pre-K teachers with enhanced classroom resources.
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Grow Up Great - PNC Bank
As the CEO of the South Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the overseer for the Education Committee, Flannery has led over 100 volunteers to put on several events to support early education in the community. These events include a new teacher welcome breakfast, a school supply drive, an early literacy-focused back-to-school drive, and more.
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Kelly Flannery, CEO - South Tampa Chamber of Commerce