Allyx Schiavone sent in this write-up about the second Annual Fair Haven Family Stroll:
Building wooden boats, chasing bubbles, banging drums, dancing with streamers.
Saturday May 12 was not just another day in the park for families in the Fair Haven community. The second annual Fair Haven Family Stroll brought an array of creative activities, community resources and kid-focused fun to the Quinnipiac River Park.
The event — a festival and fundraiser to support quality early childhood education in the Fair Haven community — took place on a bright sunny Saturday just four days after the state Senate passed Governor Dannel Malloy’s landmark education reform bill. Among other developments, the bill awarded an additional 1,000 School Readiness slots to bolster Connecticut preschoolers’ access to quality early childhood education.
Like Malloy’s bill, the festival had education access at its heart, specifically early childhood education. Organized by Friends Center for Children and Alexis Hill Montessori, the event sought to draw attention to the proven, but oft-overlooked, fact that quality education in a child’s early years positively impacts overall academic success, and leads to considerable social and economic gains. University of Chicago Economics Professor James Heckman, a Nobel Prize winner, demonstrated that the highest return for every dollar invested in education comes when investing in birth-to-age‑3 education.
“Investment in community and investment in education go hand in hand, so a great community-building event makes sense,” said parent and local resident Carolyn Christmann. More than 250 people came out to enjoy the Fair Haven Family Stroll. Some stretched their imagination with free books from Read to Grow and New Haven Reads; and crafts from Chatham Square Neighborhood Association, Eli Whitney Museum, and the early childhood programs. Others stretched their muscles with dance led by Sarah Kennedy, parachute games directed by Velma Lyons, a physical education teacher from Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School, and children’s yoga with Amy Dest, also a teacher at Betsy Ross.
Michael Mills and Cecelia Calloway (daughter of Jazz legend Cab Calloway) members of Drums not Guns brought beautiful and engaging rhythms to the day and a puppet show from the Hispanic Health Council motivated children to eat well and stay fit.
As is the style of early childhood education, the event mixed fun with learning. In addition to recreation and art, a host of community groups brought valuable information and resources, including: CARE, City Seed, Elm City Cycling, Elm City Market, Fair Haven Library, Healthy Start, JUNTA, the Maternal and Child Health Division of the Health Department, MOMs partnership, and New Haven Farms.
The New Haven Police Department showed its commitment to community policing by giving kids glimpses into their cruiser, as well as magnets and honorary badges. Engine 10 from the New Haven Fire Department also delighted the crowd with a close-up encounter with a fire truck and equipment.
Truly making the event possible were the generous donations from the event’s sponsors: Webster Bank and the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven ($1,000); the Annie E. Casey Foundation, United Way of Greater New Haven ($500); Fair Haven Furniture and People’s Bank ($100) and an in-kind stage donation by the City of New Haven’s Department of Arts, Culture and Tourism.
To help raise funds, the event featured a 1.5 mile stroll around the river – a pledge-based activity that drew sponsorships for the coordinating partners. The money raised by the walkers, along with donations for the event, will support the partnering high-quality early childhood programs.
The message of the day’s festivities was to raise awareness of the need for high-quality early childhood interventions as a means to stop the widening of Connecticut’s “Achievement Gap.” According to the National Center for Education Statistics in its 2011 “Nation’s Report Card” (NEAP), Connecticut has the largest “Achievement Gap” in the country. The “Achievement Gap” is defined as the disparity in academic performance between groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity and socio-economic status. Studies show that the gap begins in infancy, amplifies as the child becomes a toddler, widens by the time the child begins preschool, and solidifies by the time a child enters into kindergarten. NAEP estimates that low-income children in Connecticut are about three grade levels behind everyone else in math and reading.
For the early childhood education programs that organized the Family Stroll, the event is an important opportunity to bring awareness to the problem, and, more importantly, the possibilities: that with the right dedication, resources and support, early childhood interventions can stop the achievement gap before it even begins.
I so wish I could have been there for the second annual Fair Haven Family Stroll to see all of the fantastic activities come together! Looks like another great (or even greater) success. Congrats to the planning committee! I miss the Fair Haven community.