Preschoolers Work as One When Teachers, Parents and Music Lovers Do the Same

Check out the House of Blues concert on July 12th to benefit the Full-Circle Learning program!

Photo: Above, graduates received special honors at their ceremony June 30th. After a year of learning to appreciate diversity and work together to learn and serve, more than three of four children exceeded their parents' expecations in all growth areas: motivation to learn; desire to get along with and to help others; interest in science and the natural world; vocabulary and pre-reading skills ; and capacity in music and art. Parents had completed a bilingual home reading program while also developing fundraising skills to get through a year of growing pains.

The Full-Circle Learning Early Childhood Center at Rancho Sespe doubled the number of preschoolers served in the region this past year. The children mastered ten habits-of-heart, while the parents and teachers worked together to overcome challenges brought on by rapid growth in enrollment. Now, LA musicians are also coming together to give the project a boost.

You can help by attending the concert featured below, sponsored by Oneness!

The growth process started when the management of Rancho Sespe (a HUD community for farmworker families between Fillmore and Piru, California) requested that FCL fill Rancho Sespe's vacant Head Start space with a Full-Circle Learning program free to its families, who had never qualified for Head Start because they all work low-wage jobs in the citrus industry and are not on welfare. We agreed. These families feed America and deserve access to inspired early learning programs.

Full-Circle Learning accepted the challenge, combining two schools into one and lengthening the hours of its skilled teaching staff. However, the project learned eventually that its grant would not expand, even though the enrollment doubled. Suddenly,the utility costs, licensing needs and deferred maintenance on the building made it a struggle to keep up. Undaunted by these challenges, parents pitched in with cooking and carpentry skills to help with fundraising and minor repairs. Partial funding came from a First Five grant, licensing funds from the Samuelsson Foundation and a late-year boost from the Silicon Valley Foundation. Bessie Minor Swift Foundation funded the bilingual home reading program crafted by Full-Circle Learning, which not only trained parents but left every participant with a new home library of ten primers on this year's habits-of-heart.

Only half the projected needs have been met for the coming school year. A benefit concert, sponsored by the Oneness Project at the House of Blues in Los Angeles at 5:00 pm July 12, will help jumpstart the budget for fall, so that with the support of friends, parents and the base grant, the program can hopefully continue to serve two classes without interruption.

Meanwhile, we celebrate the achievements and service of these children, whose have honored adults who practice the habits-of-heart in their own community and who have reached out to share global wisdom with partners abroad. Even before kindergarten, they understand their responsibility to apply their skills in compassionate to benefit the whole human family.

SUPPORT THE CHILDREN IN 2015-16 BY ATTENDING THE CONCERT JULY 12.