Time for action: contact your Delegates and Senators

At Evening in Annapolis, hundreds of advocates talked with their State Delegates, Senators and staff to share the importance of early childhood education. Prince George’s advocates left a letter with them during their meetings. Commonly known as a “leave behind letter” which helps to remind their representatives of what they spoke about and provided some contact information should the representatives want to know more.

We had thirty advocates from Prince George’s County signed up to participate in Evening in Annapolis, which is great! And there are so many more voices here that need to be heard. You can still be a part of the action, in a few easy steps.

Step One: Find your Delegates and Senators and their email addresses
Visit the Maryland General Assembly website and go to Find My Representatives. Click on “Look Up” and enter your home address or use the map to click on your district. The names of the Delegates and Senators who represent you will appear, with links to find their bio and email addresses.

Step Two: Copy and paste this into an email to each of your Delegates and Senators, from you

Over the last two years, the Maryland General Assembly took big steps forward for child care.

Our state’s choices for payment rates and family eligibility in the Child Care Scholarship (formerly known as Child Care Subsidy) program matter to Prince George’s County families and communities. Thank you for not only increasing the payment rate in 2018, but also for speeding up the timeline in 2019 to make sure that investment makes an immediate impact.

We have a crisis in our county: the number of licensed child care centers and family child care homes is decreasing. We are also troubled that in Prince George’s County, only 16% of family child care providers and only 33% of child care centers are willing to enroll families who pay with subsidy/scholarship. This matters for families with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children. We can change this, and help child care programs to open and stay open successfully and offer more choices for families, when we make sure that all the pieces and parts of policy ideas come together.

Parents cannot afford quality child care; providers are paid too little; and the drive for quality is challenged by illegally-operating care and insufficient investment over many years. We are turning this around in Maryland, but there is more to be done.

I am available to tell you more about my experience and I hope you will contact me.

Thank you for your leadership for our community.

Sincerely,
(add your name)

Step 3: Send it!

Step 4: Celebrate!

Congratulate yourself for using your voice to advocate for the children in your community.

Posted on January 29, 2020