The Early Childhood Investment Corporation (ECIC), a statewide organization serving all 83 counties in Michigan, proudly announces nearly $160,000 in funding for 16 communities as part of the Think Babies Michigan initiative, made possible by a generous investment from The MolinaCares Accord (“MolinaCares”), in collaboration with Molina Healthcare of Michigan, and the Pritzker Children’s Initiative.

Through this initiative, ECIC is awarding grants up to $10,000 to community organizations and parent-led initiatives to pilot and test outreach and navigation efforts that focus on helping pregnant women and families with children under the age of 3 navigate and enroll in services like child care, home visiting, Medicaid, Head Start, and Early On.

The 16 grant recipients include:

ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services)

Chaldean Community Foundation

Clare-Gladwin Great Start Collaborative

Delta Schoolcraft Growing Families Home Visiting

Generations Ahead

Gratiot-Isabella Great Start Collaborative

Grow Benzie

Help Me Grow Macomb

Huron Intermediate School District

Keweenaw Family Resource Center

Lapeer County Community Foundation

Learn Lactate Grow

Miigwech Inc.

MomsBloom

Voices for Children Advocacy Center

Washtenaw Success by 6 Great Start Collaborative

The grantees will work with parent leaders from across the state to improve their projects in real time and their learnings will contribute to a report with policy recommendations to strengthen how families learn about and access early childhood programs and services.

The first-ever Clare-Gladwin Great Start Collaborative Early Childhood Photo Contest was conducted throughout the month of July. Families were able to submit their best/funniest/cutest photos of the special young children in their lives to be entered into the contest. They could submit up to two photos per family.

While all of the photos were winners in our book, the winner of the contest was Jennifer Coffey and her adorable granddaughter! We had 661 votes between our Facebook and in-person voting! Thank you to everyone who voted. Please see below for the pictures that were entered; the winning picture is the first in the group! Also, please look for all the entries in our newsletters and social media throughout the 2021-2022 school year. We will also hold this contest again next year, so have your cameras ready!

Voting took place in person at community events and also on our Parent Coalition Facebook page. By submitting their photos, families gave the Clare-Gladwin Great Start Collaborative permission to use the photos on our website, social media pages and newsletter throughout the 2021-2022 year! The photo with the most votes received a special prize!

We would like to thank the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs for the recent $1200.00 grant to the Clare-Gladwin Great Start Collaborative. This grant will allow us to provide over 500 families and children in Gladwin and Clare Counties an opportunity to experience an exciting performance by a Michigan artist!

Due to the fact that we serve children in rural counties, such experiences are not readily available to our low income, often isolated families.  Children and their parents will have the opportunity to sing and dance and spend time together.  By incorporating the engaging, compelling voice and quick wit of Beverly Meyer-The Music Lady into this event we will be exposing children and families to the performing arts through an interactive, musical experience- elements that really add a fun aspect to these events.  We are extremely excited to bring this opportunity to the families in our communities who have limited exposure to cultural diversity of this magnitude. 

We look forward to these upcoming events and will have more details soon on when and where these events will take place.

On September 1, 2021 and September 2, 2021 a Healthy Kids, Happy Kids event was held in Clare and Gladwin Counties. This event was focused on children birth to age 6 and was funded by Clare-Gladwin Early On program.

This event included health and wellness checks, car seat checks, free bike helmets, free backpacks and school supplies along with other swag and giveaways. At the end of each event we held a prize giveaway for bikes and wagons. The following community partners had booths at each event: MidMichigan Health, Mid Michigan Community Action Agency, Ten16, Central Michigan District Health Department, MSU Extension and Community Mental Health.