Alliance Focuses on School-Age Kids
Joan Doughty kicked off a recent forum of the Washtenaw Alliance for Children and Youth. Doughty is executive director of the Community Action Network and a WACY steering committee member. (Photo by the writer.)
In January 2008, the Washtenaw United Way announced plans to focus its funding on five areas: early childhood education and care, aging in place, food, shelter and access to health care. While they didn’t quibble with the importance of those goals, local nonprofits that work with older children were stunned that funding for K-12 kids, especially those who lived in poverty, hadn’t made the cut.
In an op/ed piece published in the April 2, 2008 Ann Arbor News, Joan Doughty, executive director of the Community Action Network, put it this way: “Nonprofit directors like myself who coordinate programs providing academic and life skills and social support to low-income and youth at risk ages 6 and up were astonished and devastated to find that this area was not represented as an established priority.”
The decision by Washtenaw United Way mobilized leaders of about 20 groups that work with school-aged children – the result is the Washtenaw Alliance for Children and Youth (WACY), a coalition that had its coming-out party at a community forum two weeks ago. [Full Story]