Partnership for Children Awarded Grants for Children’s Literacy, Health Programs

The Randolph County Partnership for Children has recently been awarded several grants to help sustain programs focused on children’s literacy and health for the next year.

The Partnership for Children received two grants from the North Carolina Partnership for Children for its Raising a Reader and Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC) programs. The Partnership was one of 12 throughout the state to receive more than one pilot grant.

Raising a Reader is an innovative program designed to increase the amount of time parents read to their children and visit the library regularly. The Partnership for Children, in collaboration with the Randolph County Public Library extension services, administered the program to more than 585 children and their families in participating child care centers since the program’s inception in 2007.

NAP SACC, a proven and results-oriented program, focuses on the child care environment and asks center directors and teachers to identify aspects of the environment they want to improve, including nutrition, equipment, play time, and opportunities for physical activity, among others.  Based on a written assessment, child care health nurses provide on-site technical assistance and a series of five workshops for staff. In collaboration with the Randolph County Health Department, this program has now impacted more than 1,000 children in 12 child care centers volunteering to participate. This year’s NAP SACC program is also funded in part by a grant from the Randolph Hospital Community Health Foundation, an endowment supporting Randolph Hospital and funding the health and wellness projects of community non-profits. The program measures success by changes in the foods offered and activity opportunities given to children.

The Partnership also received a performance award from the North Carolina Partnership for Children for successfully achieving targets for the past three consecutive years.

Truliant Federal Credit Union recently granted $1,000 to the Partnership for Children for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The Imagination Library program provides books monthly to children ages birth to five throughout Randolph County. Each child, who must be enrolled in the program by a parent or guardian, receives one age-appropriate book each month until their fifth birthday. The cost to sponsor one child in the program for one year is $30. The grant will be used to sponsor 33 children for one full year.

To learn more about these programs and others, please contact the Randolph County Partnership for Children at 629-2128.