Kentucky Educational Television’s Everyday Learning Collaborative today received more than $1.14 million in grants from the Louisville-based James Graham Brown Foundation and the national PNC Foundation.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, left, listens with KET Executive Director Shae Hopkins as Joe Tolan, president of Metro United Way, speaks at the Mini-Versity Child Development Center at Louisville Central Community Center, where the grants were announced. (Photo: KET)
The new partnership among KET, the National Center for Families Learning and Metro United Way will provide resources for early childhood educators and families throughout the state, with a special focus on low-income children.
The Brown Foundation’s grant of $818,775 is the second-largest private gift in KET’s history. As part of its Grow Up Great initiative, the PNC Foundation invested an additional $325,000. PNC had provided $150,000 in 2010 that helped launch KET’s Everyday Science for Preschoolers prototype.
KET will create a collection of Everyday Learning videos, interactives and classroom activities to be distributed free online. Some 100,000 Kentucky children and families will be impacted by the project over the next seven years through ongoing curriculum development and online training, the station said.
“We believe every child should enter school prepared for success,” said Shae Hopkins, KET executive director, at today’s announcement, which was attended by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer. “Public-private partnerships are critical to achieving that goal.”