March 1st Rally in Santa Fe for Early Childhood Programs

On March 1st I went to Santa Fe with my wife, grandaughter, and father to advocate against cutting essential early childhood programs by attending a rally in the capitol building rotunda sponsored by The Decade of The Child.  The Decade of the Child (DoC) is a grassroots advocacy coalition focusing on the well being of young children in partnership with other groups and agencies.  DoC is committed to empowering children and their families to discover and pursue their full potentials to ensure a positive future for New Mexico. 

Alan Sanchez, the executive director of St. Josephs was the moderator and his rallying cry of "We Need Money" was picked up by the crowd who had traveled from all parts of the state and hopefully reached the ears of their legislators.  The same legislature that is considering a 20% cut of state allocations for early childhood programs. 

Advocates insist we can not afford this cut because it devalues the quality of life for young children and their families and undermines the fiscal purpose of early childhood programs, to create future savings by investing in early childhood programs for learning and care.  The DoC and other advocates believe that early childhood programs help create healthy, contributing future members of society.  A new report by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national law enforcement organization shows that , "quality early learning can save $80,000,000 a year on corrections costs in New Mexico."

Baji Rankin from Decade of the Child cited a study in Michigan which showed a $1 billion savings from early childhood programs in 25 years. Diana Montoya from the NM Human Rights Commission spoke for her grandson Diego by saying "don't let us down." That message was echoed by former Governor David Cargo as he spoke to the lack of a level playing field that has been developed by uneven subsidies in the form of tax cuts to the people who least need them and then placing the burden of paying for state services on the middle and lower economic classes.  Jaime Tamez the executive director  Cuidando de los Ninos indicated that serving homeless children is difficult without a constant commitment from the state legislature.  Other speakers included Catherine Freeman the chair of the NM Early Childhood Consortium and Rosa Barraza a child care provider and president of the NM Child Care and Education Association.  A particularly poignent plea for funding was made by Deb Dennison who explained how comforting funding from Mi Via was for her as her son died of a rare neurological disease.  She pointed out the importance of expending as much money as needed to ensure the health of our chidren.  

All of the paricipants wanted the legislature to hear one simple message

 

Don't Lose Ground-Maintain our Investment in Ealry Chidhood!!

If our statement that "children are the future" is not just rhetoric, we wouldn't be cutting any money from the budget for these essential programs.