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ABOUT THE ACTION FUND
Pennsylvania’s children are in trouble. Across the state nearly a half million children face the same troubling circumstances.
We know that good health care, education and enrichment treat the wounds to a child’s development caused by poverty.
Research tells us that ensuring the safety and nurturing the intellect, creativity, and self-confidence of children raised in poverty, is difficult and requires extra resources and efforts to succeed.
In Pennsylvania, these children suffer because lawmakers fail to invest sufficient resources or support the specific policies to meet their needs.
Tens of thousands of children are uninsured, alarmingly growing up without regular access to health care.
The vast majority of low income children attend schools that have far less resources available for their education than their well-off peers.
And far less than half of the at-risk young children in the Commonwealth have access to the benefits of high quality early learning programs that are proven to boost their educational and lifetime chances of success.
That’s why the Children First Action Fund exists.
Our goal is to ensure elected officials make the right investments of public resources so that children burdened by poverty and adversity have the best chance of reaching their full potential.
OUR WORK
Children First Action Fund strategically works on both sides of the aisle, in a non-partisan fashion, to help lawmakers learn what it takes for children to succeed and persuade them to support our legislative measures.
We are singularly focused on increasing the number of elected officials who will champion investments and policies needed to ensure disadvantaged children are healthy, safe, learning in nurturing environments and engaged in the enrichment activities that, in sum, contribute to lifetime success.
Children First Action Fund employs three proven strategies to accomplish this goal:
- Deploying highly effective government affairs strategies to educate and persuade lawmakers to fight for the policies and resources we know are necessary.
- Publishing and disseminating information to citizens to enable them to judge how well lawmakers are delivering on the continuum of services and opportunities proven to help these children thrive from infancy to college graduation.
- Engaging policy experts from our partner organization, Children First PA, to educate lawmakers and make the case for the legislation and policy changes we know will make a difference in the lives of children.
OUR BOARD
The Children First Action Fund is governed by a board of bi-partisan volunteers focused on raising funds to support lobbying efforts for improved access to high quality educational opportunities, especially for our poorest children and to let citizens know when their elected officials are making that possible, and when they are not.
David Laigaie,
Action Fund Board Chair
Partner
Eckert Seamans
Emily Marks,
Action Fund Board Secretary
Partner
Kline & Specter
Nancy Lucas,
Action Fund Board Treasurer
Retired CEO
Community Behavioral Health
Carolyn Adams
Professor of Geography & Urban Planning
Temple University
Harriet Dichter
Consultant
Early Childhood Systems
Bill Ewing
Attorney
Retired
Shanee Garner-Nelson
Founding Executive Director
Lift Every Voice Phillly
Amy Ginensky
Special Counsel
Pepper Hamilton
Linda Hansell
Independent Consultant
Brendan Harris
VP of Community HealthChoices
UPMC Health Plan
Bill Isler
Former Executive Director
Fred Rogers Company
Sam Patterson
Founder
PK Financial Group
Kate Philips
CEO
Parker Philips, Inc.
Heidi A. Ramírez
Independent Education Consultant
Ebony Staton
Director
Johnson & Johnson
Nora Winkelman
Former Chief Counsel, Democratic Caucus
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Melissa Young
Founder
Mash Strategies