Falls Church-McLean Children's Center
WISH LIST: $100: 1 hour of speech therapy for 2 children; $500: a 1-month scholarship for a low-income child; $1000: gas and a driver for 20 field trips
At Falls Church-McLean Children's Center, children whose parents work as housekeepers in hotels play with children whose parents run hotels. And those with learning delays are caught early, when the chance of making an impact is greatest. Eighty percent of the Center's children are at risk of failing in school because of a developmental delay, their family’s low income, or because they come from a single parent home. So the Center's team includes a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist, English and Spanish-speaking counselors, and a special education instructor; the classroom teaching staff is exceptional. A full-day, early childhood education program for 2-5 year olds, classroom activities rotate around a theme: visiting the National Geographic Society’s Frog Exhibit in conjunction with reading about frogs, making frog craft projects, and talking about the color green - complete with green playdough. The goal is to prepare all children to enter kindergarten with age-appropriate skills, ready to succeed in school; but there is a gap of $107 per low-income child per week. Think of the difference you can make.
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