April 21, 2023 PNC Foundation to Match Donations to Pre-K and Head Start Requests The PNC Foundation is partnering with DonorsChoose—an online nonprofit that allows individuals to fund classroom projects and teacher requests for resources and materials—to help early childhood educators obtain quality resources and experiences for students in public pre-K, public charter, and Head Start classrooms. By committing to match “dollar-for-dollar” any DonorsChoose donations that support pre-k and Head Start projects, the foundation hopes to encourage others to fund child care and early childhood education. The duration of the match is undetermined and subject to restrictions and a maximum dollar amount. DonorsChoose Educator & Project Eligibility Who can participate? Pre-K teachers in every state, subject area, and grade level can use DonorsChoose. If you are an educator at a public school, public charter school, or Head Start program, are employed full-time by a school or district, and work directly with students at least 75% of the time, you are eligible to post projects. What is eligible for funding? You can request anything you need to enrich your students’ experience at school. Sports equipment? A classroom library? Furniture? Musical instruments? DonorsChoose can help. If you can imagine it, you can post a classroom project request for it. How does it work? The process is simple: Create your project in DonorsChoose. Receive donations from friends, family, and supporters through the DonorsChoose website. Receive your request. DonorsChoose orders everything for you and ships it straight to you or your school. How long does it take? The average project takes about 25 minutes to create and submit. Once your project is funded, DonorsChoose takes care of the rest. Participate in the Match To utilize the match from the PNC Foundation and better fund your pre-k or Head Start classroom project, add it to the DonorsChoose website by following the step-by-step instructions on the “How it Works” page. Results from Past Partnerships Between the PNC Foundation & DonorsChoose Previously, the PNC Foundation flash funded almost $2 million dollars in requests from 3,054 pre-k teachers across 30 states through DonorsChoose. As a result, almost 89,000 pre-k and Head Start students and their early educators received support for materials and projects. Throughout greater Pittsburgh, 126 pre-k teacher requests were fully funded. Learn More PNC’s support of DonorsChoose coincides with the launch of this year’s “Great Month” at PNC—an annual celebration held each April to raise awareness of PNC Grow Up Great® and the importance of high-quality early childhood education. Launched in 2004, the $500 million, bilingual initiative supports programs, resources, and experiences that help to prepare children from birth through age five for success in school and life. To learn more about PNC’s partnership with DonorsChoose and how to participate, visit the PNC Bank website or view the flyer.
January 9, 2018 UnConference Through the generous support of PNC Grow Up Great, Trying Together is proud to present a series of UnConferences as part of its leadership and professional development courses. <span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> About The UnConference is an innovative, hands-on professional development training format where a deeper experience is provided around a particular theme. Local and national speakers are invited to present and participants are encouraged to engage hands-on in the workshops. The day concludes with a roundtable discussion on how to apply these experiences and ideas in the early childhood environment as well as share ideas on how to partner with new colleagues. Would you like to hear about future UnConferences? Sign up to receive emails from us. Past UnConferences 2023 UnConference: Race Equity in Practice, February 11 2022 UnConference: Creating a Safe Place with Trauma-Informed Care, February 8–18 2021 Exceptional Care with a Team Approach to Inclusion, January 19–29 2020 Virtual UnConference: Caring in a “New Normal”, September 14–23 Re-Opening to Our ‘New Normal’, May 26 2019 The Business of Child Care, October 19 Young Learner’s Guide to Tech, March 30 2018 P.R.I.D.E. Speaker Series – Reimagining Early Childhood: Being Intentional About Race and Young Children, September 27 Being Intentional about Race and Young Children, September 29 Play for Change, October 30 Destination Moon, November 3 2017 Maker Tots, May 20 (part of Remake Learning Days) Mindfulness, August 10 Get Dirty!, September 22 Friedberg-Segel Early Literacy featuring Hervé Tullet, October 14 2016 An unprecedented six UnConferences were held including: Total Leadership, March 9 Maker Tots, May 14 Children+Arts 2.0 Get Dirty! Fred Rogers—The Friend, Teacher, Advocate Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood 2015 The UnConference: Children+Arts was presented with the Reggio Emilia Pittsburgh Initiative, NAREA and the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh. In addition to a private tour of the “Wonder of Learning” exhibit presented by NAREA, this UnConference explored the importance of arts in early childhood education and highlighted its evolution of innovation through the lens of Reggio Emilia’s philosophy. Keynote speaker was Reggio Emilia expert Jennifer Strange. Workshop presenters included: Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Attack Theatre, Gemini Theater, Pittsburgh Opera, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Andy Warhol Museum. 2013 The inaugural UnConference, Game On! was presented in collaboration with the CREATE Lab and Google Pittsburgh. This UnConference focused on how to embrace and appropriately use old and new technology with young children. In addition, Trying Together presented a “hackathon” where app ideas presented by teachers were brought to life through a hackathon team of programmers, designers and teachers. Keynote speaker was Illah Nourbakhsh from CREATE Lab. Workshop presenters included: Google Pittsburgh, TechShop, Dream Flight Adventures at Shaler Elementary, Pittsburgh Center for Creative ReUse, Schell Games, MAYA Design, Education Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University, CREATE Lab, MakeShop at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Etcetera Edutainment and Assemble.
