Star Power is the day early childhood advocates spend at the capitol talking with and educating their Michigan legislators about the importance of early childhood issues, and the difference quality early childhood experiences make in young children’s lives.
 

Judy Samelson, chief executive officer, Early Childhood Investment Corporation, and Jack Kresnak, president and CEO of Michigan's Children.

Title: Our ECIC Roadmap for Election Activities

2:15 Thursday

This governor has now defined herself as the one who helped transfer Michigan economy. We need to keep that foremost in our conversations.

What's going to resonate is economics.

I was amazed last night she didn't make the link between early childhood and jobs.

The Michigan Election Process: How it works and how it can work for us.

Presenter: Matt Gillard, an advocacy specialist with the Michigan Association of United Ways.

Afternoon session, Thursday, 1:18 p.m.

Speaker begins: "Remember the election is an opportunity. We know public often doesn't pay attention to issues like this, except during elections."

What's at stake?

Governor - Whoever that is will do a great deal to shape early childhood.

Blogging live from the Parenting Leadership Institute inside the Kellogg Center in East Lansing.

It's 9:15 a.m. Thursday and Dr. Pennie Foster-Fishman, professor of psychology at MSU. Her topic is the challenges coalitions face in recruiting and sustaining an active membership base and provide practical solutions coaltions can implement to build local, diverse constituencies.

A lot of people around the state have been, in a sense, "praying" for the state legislature to rescind the Senate's cuts and outright program eliminations to early childhood. But now folks in Kalamazoo are literally praying. 

Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Kzoo will host an interfaith prayer service at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16 to call attention "our young children and their preparation for school and life." If you can make it, the church is at 120 Roberson in Kalamazoo. If not, they invite you to pray wherever you might be.