Celebrating NOLA C.A.R.E.S
Last month we celebrated the close of a groundbreaking collective impact pilot: NOLA C.A.R.E.S. Four years ago, a group of New Orleans leaders came together to ideate on how we could improve economic mobility for Black women and Latinas in our community by improving access to high quality early childhood education. We were awarded $5M by JP Morgan Chase to bring our vision to life. We have lots of wins to celebrate over these past four years, but most importantly, we have a roadmap for the future of early childhood education and the brilliant educators supporting our youngest learners.
We're grateful to the agencies that focused resources on creating this collective catalyst: The Mayor’s Office of Youth and Families, Agenda for Children, Total Community Action, United Way of Southeast Louisiana - Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, For Providers by Providers, Power Coalition, Louisiana Policy Institute for Children, BanchaLenguas and Beloved Community. We all understood how inextricably linked early childhood education and economic mobility are - especially for Black and Latine women. And we knew that, alone, each of our pieces of the puzzle couldn’t solve this massive need, but that together we could unlock a significant opportunity for our city.
Our charge: Creating Access and Resources for Equity and Success/Creando Accesso y Recursos Para Equidad( NOLA CARES). We leveraged our collective strengths to support private-public partnerships for early care access, advocate for key statewide regulatory and legislative policies, expand facilities access, deepen the business acumen of ECE center directors, and prepare early childhood educators to lead their own research and policy advocacy. Later this summer we’ll publish the NOLA CARES programmatic results, wins, and lessons learned.
While this model comes to a close, we celebrate the work that will continue. Out of NOLA CARES grew a new coalition on employer-sponsored childcare. The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading at UWSELA has secured commitments from public and private sector leadership to subsidize early care for their employees. Recognizing that most employers are not able to host childcare on their campus, this initiative will fill in the gap for family care needs for participating hospitality businesses and first responder agencies. This coalition will launch their first services in the Fall 2025 and are excited about building a continuum of support ranging from emergency care, ongoing care, and even gaps in summer camp needs.
In closing, Ms. Thelma French of Total Community Action reminded us that NOLA CARES prepared us for the road ahead. NOLA CARES was a unique model that taught us key lessons:
- Bring someone with you. Remember that we are all connected.
- Try, learn, and adapt. Try, fail, and adapt. Don’t give up!
- Do with people, not for them.
- We must sustain.
NOLA CARES was our training ground and now it’s up to us to continue the work.
