Articles from Our Executive Director
Turning the tables on Devil’s Night in Detroit
When a house across the street from John George’s family home in northwest Detroit fell into disrepair, drug dealers moved in. Not wanting his then two-year old son to grow up across the street from a crack house and determined to stay in Detroit, George and two neighbors took action and boarded up the house. When the dealers came back and couldn’t get in, they…
PNC Foundation, Skillman Foundation and Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation Invest $1.5 Million to Close Word Gap in Detroit Neighborhoods
The PNC Foundation, Skillman Foundation and Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation today announced a $1.5 million, two-year collaboration to build preschool children’s vocabularies in two Detroit neighborhoods. Say & Play with Words (Hablen y Jueguen con Palabras) will infuse vocabulary and literacy strategies and family service learning into a powerful educational model for families in the Southwest Detroit and Brightmoor neighborhoods. Read the…
Program aims to improve kids’ vocabulary in Detroit
What’s in a word? Or more specifically, 30 million words? A child’s future. Leaders from the PNC Foundation, Skillman Foundation and Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation will unveil a $1.5-million, 2-year collaboration to help build preschool children’s vocabulary in two areas of Detroit. The Say & Play with Words program will be announced at a news conference Tuesday in Detroit. The idea: Infuse…
VIDEO: Educating Young Detroiters in Need
With Gov. Rick Snyder talking about ways to improve Detroit Public Schools, four leaders from business and education gathered with host Carol Cain to talk about that and the issue of better preparing more young people for school during a special taping of “Michigan Matters.” Watch the full video here.
National Center for Family Philanthropy Names Katherine Lorenz and Doug Bitonti Stewart Fellows in Family Philanthropy
Two of family philanthropy’s brightest young leaders — Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation President Katherine Lorenz and Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation Executive Director Doug Bitonti Stewart — have been named Fellows by the National Center for Family Philanthropy. Read the full story here.
Going Further Together: Collective Learning for Impact
As the conference wound down, the facilitator congratulated the group for the learning we had done together. For two days, we had listened to experts in the field and convened with funder and research and policy colleagues from cities across the country to discuss best practices in early childhood education. The volume in the room had started to rise as attendees shoved materials into their…