Thank you to the Season for Sharing, a fund of The Indianapolis Foundation, for providing $10,000 toward the Day Nursery Tuition Assistance Program. In 2012, more than 300 Day Nursery children and their families received assistance from our program . This funding allows all families to choose high quality, accredited early care and education for their children.
Families in need of tuition assistance should contact any Day Nursery location via this contact form or call 317-636-9197.
In today’s Thankful Thursday post, we are celebrating the donation of a piano from Go: Give Back a youth philanthropy program from The Women’s Fund of Central Indiana. GO Ahead & Play is a public art project led by 6th-12th grade GO: Give Back students. GO students are using their talent, time and leadership to bring art and music to central Indiana.The students asked residents, businesses and schools to donate the pianos, and then worked with artists to decorate them. The 20 pianos were placed around the greater Indianapolis area for the public to play and after 18 days in the community, the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana donated those pianos to their grantees.
The students of the Day Nursery IU Health Early Learning Center were tickled pink to receive the “Tickled Pink” piano which was created by Annette Marino, : Stockannette and the Yarnburners. They knitted and crocheted an amazing pink sweater for our piano. You might have seen it while it resided on Monument Circle for the first 18 days of this month.
Posted in Grants and Funding, Thankful Thursday, Uncategorized
Thank you to Indiana Members Foundation – Joan Wolfe Legacy Grant for your support of Day Nursery’s Tuition Assistance Program.
In 2012, our tuition assistance program helped over 300 families access quality early childhood education.
Joan Wolfe worked for Indiana Members Credit Union for 27 years and was a huge supporter of Indiana Members Foundation’s mission to provide school children with the necessities essential for learning and succeeding in their education. Joan lost her fight with cancer in March of 2013, but her fight to help children succeed continues with the Joan Wolfe Legacy Grant.
The Indiana Members Foundation investment in the youngest children of Indianapolis is so valuable, and we are grateful for your belief in our mission. We are delighted by your commitment for helping make quality early care and education available to all families in our community.
Myrta Pulliam, chair of the Star Media community engagement team talks to grant recipients at this year’s Season for Sharing presentation. The campaign raised a total of $224,500 to benefit 27 Indianapolis nonprofit agencies that serve at-risk children and families and improve education. The funds raised in the 2011-12 campaign include $75,500 in matching funds from The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com.
The Week of the Young Child is coming April 22-28, 2012! This week long awareness campaign sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Children (NAEYC) focuses on the needs of young children and their families and recognizes early childhood programs and services that meet those needs. In anticipation of this special week, we would like to continue to thank our many supporters who make our mission possible.
Thank you to The Indianapolis Star and their Season for Sharing campaign for providing funding to our Tuition Assistance Program.
In anticipation of April showers, the support is raining on Day Nursery and we are so grateful! Thank you to the Indianapolis Foundation, a CICF affiliate, and Shaw-Burckhardt-Brenner Foundation, Inc. for supporting Day Nursery’s Tuition Assistance Program. Their tremendous support provides scholarships for young children to attend Day Nursery.
We are excited to announce a new event, Race into Reading, which will take place on Wednesday, May 9th at Riverwalk Banquet Center in Broad Ripple. Race Into Reading is a celebration of early childhood literary. Day Nursery is honored to have Indy 500 2010 Rookie of the Year Simona De Silvestro, as honorary chair and emcee, Bob Jenkins, for this special evening. Tickets are on sale now. If you need more information on this event, please contact Sarah Ferguson at sarahf@daynursery.org or (317) 636-9197, extension 240.
Today’s guest post is from Sarah Ferguson, Day Nursery Director of Development
Greetings from the Day Nursery Development department! Spring is here! We want to take this time to appreciate the generosity of our supporters.
First, we want to thank the Efroymson Family Fund, a CICF Fund, for their generous support in awarding a $45,000 grant for the Tuition Assistance Program, which currently supports more than 150 families annually.
Next, we would like to extend our appreciation to the Lilly Endowment for supporting the transformation of our Ruth A. Lilly Center’s outside playground area into the Reggio Emilia model. The Endowment made a $25,000 commitment to this project.
We would also like to thank the United Way of Central Indiana and all of the many donors who have contributed to the annual campaign. Your generosity allows us to continue our mission of assuring excellent early care and education of young children in central Indiana.
Junior League of Indianapolis volunteers prepare literacy kits for the Emerging Readers Discovery Club.
This afternoon from 4:00-5:30 p.m., Day Nursery will host volunteers from Junior League of Indianapolis at our Ft. Harrison and Northwest locations. The volunteers invite the preschool children and their parents to participate in a variety of fun activities. They will have the opportunity to decorate cookies and have their photo taken in a chef’s cap and apron. We will also have story time, where volunteers will be reading books from Day Nursery’s Lending Libraries.
This event marks the launch of the Emerging Readers Discovery Club, an incentive program to encourage young readers. Junior League has donated reading materials for the classrooms at Day Nursery, including kits that children can take home and share with their families. One kit includes recipes and supplies for families to cook together, and is the inspiration for this event.
Please join us this afternoon at 4 p.m. And be sure to check out Day Nursery’s Lending Libraries afterward and choose a fun book or activity to share with your child.
Linda Noble rolls a ball across the floor to model the movements that accompany a song which helps infants and toddlers develop hand-eye coordination, memory recall, and social-emotional skills.
This winter, Day Nursery teachers are participating in a workshop, presented by Linda Noble of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, to learn more about Making Music in the Early Childhood Classroom. Linda has been a member of the early learning staff of the Symphony since 1996. The three-hour session models age-appropriate lessons using music that will support students’ development of critically important skills including listening, following directions, taking turns and participating as a group. Thanks to Patty Fisher, Day Nursery Director of Curriculum for snapping this picture. During the course of the Day Nursery winter institute “Making Music in the Early Childhood Classroom,” 120 lead and assistant teachers will be trained, which in turn will impact 1,350 Day Nursery children a year. The training is generously underwritten by the PNC Foundation which is committed to funding educational and developmental opportunities that improve the school readiness of underserved children.
Today’s guest post is from Beth Rodriguez, Director of Development at Day Nursery.
In 2011, holders of IRAs who are at least 70½ years old, can contribute up to $100,000 directly to a charity. Instead of withdrawing your minimum distribution from your IRA, you can have funds distributed directly to Day Nursery. This is a great way to make a generous gift to help the children and families of Day Nursery. This contribution will qualify as part or all of your IRA’s required minimum distribution.
This kind of gift to Day Nursery has so many benefits including tax savings for you. Traditionally, distributions from an IRA are taxed as regular income. However, if you gift these funds directly to Day Nursery, you will not be required to pay income tax on the distribution. Please talk to your financial advisor right away to see if you qualify. If you have additional questions, please contact me at (317)636-9197, ext. 240 or brodriguez@daynursery.org.
Day Nursery Director of Development Beth Rodriguez returns today with another guest blog post!
Greetings from the Day Nursery Development Department! It’s been an exciting couple of weeks with some fantastic grants coming through in support of the children and teachers! As Thanksgiving approaches, we want to make sure that these generous funders know how much we appreciate them.
First, we want to thank the Lilly Endowment for an extraordinary grant of $200,000 in support of the Tuition Assistance Program and the Staff Education and Self-Sufficiency Initiative. The Endowment has made a two-year commitment of $75,000 each year for the Staff Education and Self-Sufficiency Initiative (a total of $150,000) and $25,000 each year for Tuition Assistance (a total of $50,000).
Next, we want to extend our appreciation to the Efroymson Family Fund, a CICF Fund, for their generous grant of $50,000 in support of the Tuition Assistance Program. Over the years, the Efroymson Family has awarded $120,000 in support of Tuition Assistance and the Staff Education and Self-Sufficiency Initiative.
The good news just keeps coming!
We also want to thank The Indianapolis Foundation for their $25,000 commitment to the Tuition Assistance Program. The Indianapolis Foundation has invested generously in the sustainability of Day Nursery, and we are stronger now than ever because of their support and belief in our mission and programs.
And last, but certainly never the least, we want to thank the Women’s Fund of Central Indiana, a CICF Fund, for their continued investments in the lives of the children we serve and the teachers who care for them. This year, the Women’s Fund granted $25,000 in support of the Staff Education and Self-Sufficiency Initiative.
If you aren’t already familiar with the core programs that these generous grants are supporting, here’s a little more information:
Tuition Assistance Program: Day Nursery believes that all children, regardless of a family’s income, should have access to high-quality early care and education. Support of the Tuition Assistance Program gives families the opportunity to choose quality early care and education for their children while improving their tenuous hold on self-sufficiency. Thanks to our extraordinary and generous funders, 300 children from low-income families attended Day Nursery this year and got the best start in life.
Staff Education and Self-Sufficiency Initiative: This comprehensive professional development program provides our early education teachers with the tools and financial support they need to earn a Child Development Associate credential (CDA), an Associate’s or Bachelor’s Degree in Early Education. Day Nursery employs more than 150 early education teachers in its centers and, since good teachers are the heart of Day Nursery’s excellent programs for the children in our care, it is essential to provide them with high quality educational opportunities.
If you would like to make an investment in these programs, please visit http://www.daynursery.org and donate today! If you would more information about our exciting planned giving opportunities, please contact me, Beth Rodriguez, at (317) 636-9197, ext 240.
The Day Nursery Indianapolis Early Edition 