NEXT 2019 Celebrating ParentChild+ – November 7, 2019

Contact
Kate Schwass, Executive Director
GreenLight Fund Bay Area
1111 Broadway, 3rd Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
[email protected]
www.greenlightfund.org

October 2, 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

GREENLIGHT FUND BAY AREA’S “NEXT” TO LAUNCH PARENTCHILD+

Bay Area, CA – GreenLight Fund’s unique community of nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists will come together this fall for the sixth “NEXT” event celebrating ParentChild+. This event will officially celebrate the launch of ParentChild+ in the Bay Area. The community is invited to learn more about this innovative organization and support their efforts as they aim to partner with 600 families over the next four years.

GreenLight Fund, FIRST 5 Santa Clara County, Family Resource Center operators SOMOS Mayfair and Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County announced a multi-million-dollar partnership to fight family poverty in our region earlier this year. GreenLight and FIRST 5 invested $1.2 million to bring ParentChild+—and its innovative model of trusting and investing in social-emotional learning and school readiness solutions—to the Bay Area. SOMOS Mayfair and Catholic Charities have committed their staff’s time and early childhood expertise to be ParentChild+’s first replication partners in San Jose. “ParentChild+’s launch represents an exciting cross-sector literacy collaboration reaching an underserved population in San Jose,” says Kate Schwass, Executive Director GreenLight Bay Area. “These partnerships are critical to the long-term sustainability and success of ParentChild+’s work in the city.” 

ParentChild+ brings Early Learning Specialists into the homes of families with children aged 2-4 who do not have access to quality early childhood programming. Working together with parents, they strengthen parent-child interaction and build language – and learning-rich homes that enhance children’s literacy, cognitive, and social-emotional skills, while supporting the transition to pre-k.

In 54 years, ParentChild+ has documented important longitudinal impacts for families: children enter school as well, or better, prepared than their classmates, and perform significantly better than their socio-economic peers on school readiness measures in kindergarten and first grade. In third grade, ParentChild+ children are reading and doing math on grade level and are 50% less likely to be referred to special education services. ParentChild+ children graduate from high school at the rate of middle-class children nationally – 30% higher than their socio-economic peers. The ParentChild+ National Center serves over 8,700 families annually through 127 community-based partners, in 15 states.

This event is generously sponsored by John and Susan Simon, Sigma Prime Ventures, The San Francisco Foundation, eBay, Grammarly, Brenda and Alexander Leff, and Mainsail Partners. 

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The GreenLight Fund transforms the lives of children, youth and families in high-poverty urban areas by creating local infrastructure and a consistent annual process to: identify critical needs; import innovative, entrepreneurial programs that have a significant, measurable impact; and galvanize local support to help programs reach and sustain impact in the new city. Started in Boston in 2003, the nonprofit venture philanthropy organization launched the San Francisco Bay Area site in 2012. Additional GreenLight cities include Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City and Philadelphia. Learn more about GreenLight Fund Bay Area.