Clarkston Families Decide Initiative will focus on Family Engagement
CDF: A Collective Action Initiative has received a three-year, family engagement and early learning grant for over $400,000
from the W.K. Kellogg Foundationof Battle Creek, MI. The grant will allow CDF, a non-profit focused on community engagement in Clarkston, Georgia, to expand its community engagement work through the Clarkston Families Decide Initiative.
Clarkston Families Decide will engage families with children birth to eight in participatory workshops and in an innovative decision-making process to equip them to take actions as leaders, resulting in positive changes in early learning systems and in their community.
[quote style=”boxed”]“By partnering with organizations that are committed to overcoming obstacles faced by families of color and low-income communities, we are actively seeding and cultivating authentic family leadership programs that create opportunities for parents to be engaged from the very beginning of their child’s education,”[/quote] said Carla Thompson, Vice President – Program Strategy for WKKF.
Thompson also noted that often families do not participate in making major decisions that impact their children’s education. Organizations like CDF recognize that family engagement is a core strategy connected to improving learning outcomes and are working tirelessly to lift up the voices of families in an effort to set all children on a path to success.
Jeremy Lewis, CDF’s Executive Director, said CDF is “honored to be one of 30 organizations selected nationally.” Clarkston Families Decide builds on CDF’s current work in the Clarkston community and highlights the important role parents play not only in the lives of their children, but in creating a vibrant community. “We look forward to our partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and working alongside other grantees as we learn and share our experience.”
Clarkston, an area outside of Atlanta, GA, is home to refugees and immigrants from over 40 countries, speaking over 60 languages, and is equally diverse in its U.S. born population. Clarkston Families Decide will work with diverse families to plan and work toward a strong, unique and multi-cultural early learning system that works collaboratively with the schools.
Clarkston Families Decide works through family engagement, a community early learning campaign, and working collaboratively with partners including the City of Clarkston, the Clarkston Early Learning Network, early learning and literacy programs, community organizations, and the schools.
About CDF
CDF: A Collective Action Initiative, is a 501(c)3 organization working in Clarkston, Ga. to mobilize a community whose residents drive and direct the development of activities and services that benefit their community. Through facilitation, network building, and training, CDF partners with the community to be a catalyst for positive change. To learn more and donate to CDF’s mission, please visit www.cdfaction.org.
About the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to help break the cycle of poverty by removing barriers based on race or income that hold back children, so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.
The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Mich., and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special emphasis is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti.