Spring 2024 VECF Grantees

Opportunity Grants

Ascension Childcare in Chittenden County

Ascension Childcare is a 5 STAR, NAEYC-accredited, Seed & Sew-certified nonprofit program committed to providing high-quality early childhood education for families in their community. Funding will help revitalize the workforce and reopen a pre-K classroom that was closed in part due to the pandemic, creating 8 to 10 slots for children ages 3 to 5.

Driver Hill Kiddie Care in Orleans County

Driver Hill Kiddie Care, a registered family child care home located in Derby, is in the final stages of expanding and becoming licensed. Opportunity Grant funding will help hire a full-time staff member and create two additional spots in their program.

Good Beginnings of Central VT in Washington County

After 30 years of delivering high-impact programs and services to expectant and new parents throughout Central Vermont, Good Beginnings is poised to begin expanding their reach. Funding will support the expansion of their successful Wellness Parenting Workshop series, Caregivers’ Meet-ups, and Postpartum Angels programs.

King Street Center in Chittenden County

For 53 years, King Street Center has served children and families experiencing economic insecurity and systematic marginalization in Burlington. Opportunity Grant funding will support the early education portion of their new Family Support Program, which provides wraparound services for families with children ages 18 months to 8 years of age. The goal of the program is to actively prevent families from falling into crisis and work with those who are in crisis providing resources, case management, and support. This partnership between King Street Center and caregivers ensures everyone’s needs are being met, fosters positive relationships between program staff and family members, and increases stability and well-being for the entire family.

Lil’ Sunshine Child Care Center in Orange County

Lil’ Sunshine Child Care (LSCC) will address the pressing need for child care by creating eight new infant spots and 10 toddler spots for families who live or work in the Orange Southwest School District. Located in downtown Randolph, this project will also ultimately provide economic support as part of the larger goals for downtown revitalization by offering jobs paying a fair wage and offering critical support for the existing workforce. 

Little Dippers Doodle Children’s Center in Caledonia County

This project will work to address the mental health crisis in young children within the community by funding a full-time staff member to implement social-emotional curriculum throughout Little Dippers Doodle Children’s Center’s classrooms, provide support to classroom teachers and direct support to children, and facilitate conferences with families and provide parent education.

Little Lakers Academy LLC in Chittenden County

Little Lakers Academy, a center-based early childhood program in Colchester, is opening a second preschool classroom, creating eight infant spots, one toddler spot, and five prekindergarten spots. Funding will support hiring additional staff and purchasing necessary supplies and materials. 

Milton Family Community Center in Chittenden County

Milton Family Community Center will improve outcomes for youth and families through newly designed and expanded parental engagement opportunities, including involvement at a leadership level and targeted opportunities for parent education and support groups. Funding will help hire a dedicated part-time staff person focused on family support programming, including expanding Parent Cafes and hosting monthly facilitated parent workshops.

Montessori School of Central Vermont in Washington County

The Montessori School of Central Vermont (MSCVT) is a nonprofit independent school providing Toddler, Primary, and Elementary education to 110 children ranging from 18 months to 12 years. MSCVT is the only fully ADA-accessible independent school in Central Vermont, and their ability to provide an all-day option for children in special education programs is unique to the area. Funding will support the need for high-quality workforce development through Montessori-based professional development, college coursework with a Special Education focus, and staff retention bonuses.

Prevent Child Abuse Vermont (Statewide)

Schools have been identified as an excellent place to disseminate programs for the primary prevention of child sexual abuse (Walsh et al., 2018), since schools know the culture and also the specific risks faced in their community. Although schools in Vermont are mandated to do child sexual abuse prevention education annually, there are barriers, including budget constraints and a lack of properly trained personnel to fulfill that role (French et al., 2022). To address this gap, Prevent Child Abuse Vermont (PCAVT) will provide Vermont early childhood centers and elementary schools that serve children between ages 3 and 8 with free professional development and materials using the Care for Kids program, an effective prevention tool to decrease the incidence of child sexual abuse.

RIVET (Reggio Inspired Vermont EarlyEducation Team) in Chittenden County

RIVET and five collaborating partners will implement a professional development program during the 2024-25 school year. Funding will support three part-time consultants, classroom materials, and substitutes to allow teachers to spend time outside the classroom reflecting on their observations, collaborating with each other and families, and planning “next steps.” The five partner programs in this project will form the nucleus of a Chittenden County network of Reggio-inspired Hubs of Study and Practice which will serve as resources to area early childhood educators. RIVET envisions these “hubs” as places where teachers will learn with and from each other while studying an approach that views children, teachers, and families as agents of their own learning and development and views learning as a holistic, relational, and inclusive enterprise. 

Rutland County Parent Child Center in Rutland County

Opportunity Grant funds will support strategic investments that will bolster Rutland County Parent Child Center’s capacity to reach, engage, and serve families. Their project will utilize multiple community outreach initiatives to connect families to childcare services; provide ongoing professional development for educators, including training through SPARQS as well as CLASS’s “Train-the Trainer,” which will support the scale of CLASS implementation throughout their early childhood education programming and open up the possibility of training community partners; invest in a daycare management software system as well as the technology necessary to ensure cohesive implementation; and support on-site and by-appointment therapy opportunities for children and families. 

Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington County

After Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) expanded The Learning Tree program by 17 slots in 2020, they quickly filled those slots and realized another expansion was needed. This funding will allow SVMC to provide mentoring for new and existing staff and hire a new director-in-training, supporting the expansion of their program to create 10 additional toddler slots.

Starksboro Cooperative Preschool in Addison County

This project will address an urgent need to create both toddler and preschool slots in Addison County, allow families with younger children to place siblings in the same program, and improve staff compensation. After several years of starting the school year with a wait list, and after repeated family survey requests to enroll siblings ages 2 to 5 in the same program, Starksboro Cooperative Preschool is expanding their preschool program to add six toddler and five preschool spots.

Turn to Joy in Grand Isle County

Families in Grand Isle have few opportunities to gather together in social settings that support early learning. Opportunity Grant funding will support a Saturday morning playgroup facilitated by experienced staff members that will encourage community building through accessible events open to all members of the community. The foundation of that work is developing a group of early educators and caregivers who have access to anti-bias materials, including materials that foster equity and diversity in our small community. The resources needed to support this work includes access to online trainings, teaching resources, books, and consultation with professionals in the field.

University of Vermont in Addison County

UVM Extension began health outreach programming with migrant farmworkers in Franklin County in 2010, establishing Bridges to Health, a Health Promoter (aka Community Health Worker, or CHW) Program, in 2012. This program has since grown to serve agricultural and non-agricultural workers and families across all 14 counties of the state. With the drastic increase in requests for support from immigrants and migrants themselves and from community-based organizations, UVM Extension sees the need for creating smaller service areas so that CHWs can adequately meet the needs of immigrant and migrant families. Funding will support an Addison County-based bilingual CHW to provide direct services to pregnant individuals and families with young children while improving collaborations with local partners to ensure immigrant and migrant families have equal opportunities to receive information about and access to health, social, and educational opportunities within their communities. 

Vermont Village School in Windham County

Vermont Village School will partner with community organizations to create liberatory spaces for early childhood in Southeastern Vermont. The project will include two workshop series, one for families and one for early childhood educators, titled “Building Liberatory Worlds with Young Children,” as well as classroom visits and a pilot affinity group for BIPOC families.

Washington County Mental Health Services in Washington, Franklin, and Grand Isle Counties

Doula care is an evidence-based practice with short- and long-term impacts. It is well established that doula support results in better, safer, less expensive births; improved birth outcomes; and increased infant health and maternal well-being. Traditionally, doulas are available only to families who can afford to pay out-of-pocket. Opportunity Grant funds will support the creation of a birth and postpartum doula training to be offered free of charge across the state in an effort to grow the community doula workforce. Washington County Mental Health Services (WCMHS) and Northwestern Counseling and Support Services (NCSS) will collaboratively create trainings based on their levels of expertise and experience. WCMHS will focus on prenatal and birth training and NCSS will focus on postpartum supports, both with special attention to the unique needs of marginalized families in our state. Funding will also support hiring a consultant to help create a Doula Advisory Board, a key component of Medicaid coverage, to work closely with Vermont Office of Professional Regulation to create multiple pathways for certification or recognition as a “Medicaid doula.” 

Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development in Windham County

The Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development (WPC) is the regional anchor organization for inclusive early childhood education and family support in southern Vermont. They support young children and their families by offering a diverse set of programs which include early intervention services, home-visiting nursing care for prenatal/postpartum mothers, family support, early childhood and family mental health care, family supportive housing services, supervised visitation services, food assistance, child care referral services, child care financial assistance, the Early Learning Express Bookmobile, and high-quality early childhood education. Opportunity Grant funding will support WPC’s recruitment and retention efforts through compensation and professional development, allowing them to reopen a classroom that will create 12 toddler slots.

Wonderfeet Kids’ Museum in Rutland County

“Have a ‘One’derfeet Year” is designed to engage families in activities and habits that encourage optimal brain development during the critical birth-to-age-3 window. Wonderfeet will partner with pediatric medical providers, visiting nurses, Help Me Grow, and Rutland County Parent Child Center to inform families that they are eligible for a free Wonderfeet Kids’ Museum membership if they have a 1-year-old, are residents of Rutland County, and have completed a developmental screening through the Help Me Grow VT Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) online portal. Families will have an opportunity to ask questions about their ASQ results, make a plan to talk with their medical provider, or fill out a CIS referral if requested. All participating families will receive additional supports, including recommended developmental activities, milestone check-ins, screening opportunities, information on parenting supports, nutritional programs, and special events offered by Wonderfeet and our partners.