Letter to the Editor: Preschools Seek Community Support in Cash-Strapped Times

This letter was submitted to Patch by Mount Washington Preschool and Child Care Center Board Chair Pat Griffith, coinciding with the release of MWPCCC's annual financial report, which can be downloaded from the media box at the right.

Dear Friends,

With pleasure, we would like to share this year’s Mount Washington Preschools Annual Report, which can be found on our website at www.mtwashingtonpreschools.org.  It has been a strong year for our three centers – all thriving with strong staff and great parent involvement.

But the issue facing all child care organizations, including MWPCCC, is finding resources to continue to serve our low-income population--a larger portion of the population for young families struggling to get started in this economy. 

MWPCCC is striving to improve this dearth of early childhood education and care in Northeast Los Angeles, by working to improve our physical site, so that it meets the Head Start standards for noise in the classroom.  Currently the majority of our families needing subsidies receive support through CalWorks, with others relying on the assistance we can provide through our fund raising efforts. But, as I’m sure you are seeing in the news, CalWorks is tightening the number of families they can serve, which has impacted the families with children enrolled in all three of our centers. 

[Ed. Note: As of July, 2011, the average CalWORKs grant will represented just 29.1% of the federal poverty level, the lowest level in more than 20 years, according to the Western Center on Poverty and Law.]

MWPCCC has undertaken a major campaign to deal with the acoustics in the Preschool room at La Casita Verde--the non-historic room attached to the Historic Ziegler Estate where we serve Northeast Los Angeles families.  Our consultants have conducted the acoustic testing and we need to undertake structural modifications to reduce the noise in that classroom.  This is important, so that we can work with our local HeadStart organization to incorporate a HeadStart program within our preschool program, as we have previously done.

We thank our initial investors in this project: the and the , but still have a long way to go to complete it.

If you would be able to help us with this long-term solution to the acoustics at La Casita Verde, I urge you to contribute to MWPCCC today and help us provide a safe, healthy, and nurturing early childhood experience for the children in our community.  If you would like to contribute online, you can do that through PayPal via our website at www.mtwashingtonpreschools.org. 

Thanks for your thoughtful consideration and support.

Sincerely,

Pat Griffith

Board Chair