The McKnight Foundation announced a grant award of $3 million during three years to expand the Minnesota Early Childhood Initiative.
The Initiative Foundation and the five other Minnesota Initiative Foundations will establish 12 more coalitions to involve local residents in improving early childhood care and education in their communities.
Two Central Minnesota communities will be selected in July to begin the program this fall. The two selected will be graduates of the Healthy Communities Partnership program serving low-income children and families.
The Minnesota Early Childhood Initiative was launched in 2003 in response to a Minnesota Department of Education report that only half of the state’s children entered kindergarten fully prepared for success. Since then, 66 grass-roots coalitions have created ways to improve early childhood awareness and services in their communities.