Whitewater LEADS partners with the United Way of
Jefferson and Northern Walworth County and the Greater Whitewater Committee,
Inc., to present No Small Matter at
the Whitewater Cinemas.
On Monday, August 5 starting at 6:30 p.m. the documentary No Small Matter will play at Whitewater Cinemas to the public for free. A brief discussion will follow the showing of the documentary.
“Over the last twenty years, a revolution in our understanding of early childhood has led to one, inescapable conclusion: the experience we have in the first five years of life shapes our brains and bodies in profound and lasting ways,” Whitewater LEADS President Jim Winship said.
Winship also mentioned adults are shaped by nature and
nurture working together, rather than being one or the other.
The purpose of showing the documentary is to inform the
Whitewater community and surrounding communities of the need to improve early
childhood development.
No Small Matter
is the first feature documentary to explore the most overlooked,
underestimated, and powerful force for good in America today: early childhood
education.
Through poignant stories and surprising humor, the film
lays out the overwhelming evidence for the importance of the first five years
and reveals how our failure to act on that evidence has resulted in an everyday
crisis for American families, and a slow-motion catastrophe for the country.
This documentary is firmly grounded in science, opening
up the “black box” of what’s happening inside children’s brains with exciting,
stimulating animation and the voices of compelling scientists, physicians, and
Early Childhood Education experts.
“Access to quality and affordable childcare has become
one of the top issues facing families in our communities,” United Way of
Jefferson and Northern Walworth Counties Executive Director Megan Hartwick
said.
No Small Matter
dives into the crucial importance of quality care, and how deeply that care can
impact a child as they move throughout their adolescence and into adulthood,
but it also highlights the financial barrier most families have to accessing
quality care, Hartwick mentioned.
She also detailed that in the United States alone, the average cost of childcare for one infant and one preschooler is $1,424 per month – about 37 percent higher than the average cost of housing.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that most families have to
sacrifice quality for cost-savings, which has a dramatic impact on those
children,” Hartwick said.
Part of the efforts to improve early childhood
development in the greater Whitewater area, Whitewater LEADS introduced the
Dolly Parton Imagination Library (DPIL) program in 2017.
The DPIL is a book/reading program wherein children (within the Whitewater Unified School District) newborn to five years old receive free, age-appropriate books mailed to their home. It is meant to engage children in the world of reading early and prepare them for schooling.
Dolly Parton, country music legend, started the Dollywood
Foundation which started the DPIL. It was originally a charity in Sevier
County, Tennessee, Parton’s home county.
Parton started the program so every preschool child in her home county could have books in their home. The program currently distributes over one million high quality books monthly to children around the world.
Whitewater LEADS is a nonprofit organization established
in 2015 to support literacy in the greater Whitewater area.
Parents who live in the Whitewater Unified School
District area with children under the age of five can register their children
to receive free books by going to imaginationlibrary.com.
For more information or to volunteer with Whitewater LEADS, email whitewaterleads@gmail.com.