Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
An Intergenerational Approach to Getting Families Housed in Santa Barbara
Lyiam Galo is the co-director of Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way and one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing...
Utilizing Faith-Owned Land to Strengthen Intergenerational Community in Seattle
E.N. West is the co-founder and lead organizer of the Faith Land Initiative of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing older and...
*
Betty Jo Gaines
Purpose Prize Fellow 2011
Gaines helps homeless families with children break the poverty cycle by providing free, individualized childcare, education and family services.
Toward the end of her 30-year tenure at the Washington, D.C., Department of Parks and Recreation, Betty Jo Gaines noted an increasing number of homeless families with children. Known for her warmth and passion for families, she started a childcare program in response. So it’s no surprise that once she retired from the department, she became executive director in 2001 of Bright Beginnings Inc., which provides education, therapeutic, health and family support services for homeless children and their families.
Every year, Bright Beginnings helps about 150 homeless children get on the path to stability through free developmental childcare, kindergarten preparation, therapeutic care and more. The organization helps parents find employment, finish their education and secure permanent housing.
“I am inspired every day by the positive changes I see in our children, whether infant, toddler or preschooler,” says Gaines. “I like the fact that Bright Beginnings children consider this their home.”
Under Gaines’ leadership, the organization has doubled its funding, hired credentialed teachers, received accreditation from the National Association for the Education of Young Children – only 8 percent of programs nationwide are so accredited – and has been recognized as a program with the “gold standard of excellence” by the Department of Human Services’ Office of Early Childhood Development. Gaines now aims to open a second center for homeless children in the city’s most economically devastated area that will reach 100 more children each year.