Partnership Annual Meeting addresses innovative strategies to build resources for young children
Durham's Partnership for Children held its first public Annual Meeting on Thursday, Oct. 16th, 2008 at the Durham Hilton Near Duke University.
Verizon was the lead sponsor of the event for more than 120 people made up of volunteers, board members, funded partner agencies, corporate champions for children and other leaders from Durham's faith, civic, medical and business communites.
During the event, two community reports—the first of their kind—were released. Getting Ready: Indicators of School Readiness in Durham County and Getting Ready: Indicators of Health in Durham County capture multiple data points at the county level for young children. The Partnership aims to use the reports to educate the public on the indicators for school readiness in the areas of ready families, ready schools, ready children, and ready communities as well as indicators that support the state of health for young children. Data in the report were compared to state figures. Also, data highlighted in the reports underscored the focus of the event—to introduce new approaches to meeting Durham County young children's growing needs.
David Lawrence, Jr., former publisher of The Miami Herald and a well-known child advocate from Florida, delivered the keynote message on strategies to building more capital to address the needs of young children. Lawrence rallied the Durham community to examine ways to supplement public dollars to help provide innovative programming for young children in Durham over the long term. Lawrence led the charge to build a $100 million endowment and public referendum for the children of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
“Over the past 13 years, we have made a lot of progress to improve early childhood education and provide high-quality child care to children who need help most, but we still are challenged with increasing unemployment and poverty rates and continued resources to serve all the young children and families who need help,” said Marsha Basloe, executive director of Durham’s Partnership for Children. “By planning to look at long-term funding strategies, our Board of Directors’ future vision is to generate additional resources to ensure more children arrive to school healthy and prepared to succeed.”
The event was followed by a half-day Board Retreat where the board reviewed more information on planning a children's endowment and children's savings accounts.
The Partnership would like to thank lead sponsor Verizon for their corporate support of this event. Thanks also goes to Silver Sponsors BB&T, Glaxo SmithKline, Skanska USA Building Inc., and Wachovia; and Bronze Sponsors, Duke Energy and Time Warner Cable.
To read Dave Lawrence's keynote message, click here.
Reports:
•• Getting Ready: Indicators of School Readiness in Durham County - A School Readiness Report Card
•• Getting Ready: Indicators of Health in Durham County - A Report Card on Young Children's Health
•• Getting Ready Report Cards Addendum- Medicaid Health Check Data.