Kentucky Educational Television (KET) last year announced $1.14 million in grants from the James Graham Brown Foundation and the PNC Foundation, to address urgent needs in early childhood education. The James Graham Brown Foundation’s grant of $818,775 is the second-largest private gift in KET’s history. As part of its Grow Up Great initiative, the PNC Foundation invested an additional $325,000, following a $150,000 grant in 2010 that helped launch KET’s Everyday Science for Preschoolers prototype.

With these grants, KET will create a new Everyday Learning Collaborative that will impact more than 100,000 Kentucky children and families. This new partnership among Kentucky Educational Television (KET), the National Center for Families Learning (NCFL) and Metro United Way will provide unique and effective resources for early childhood educators and families throughout Kentucky, including an expansive collection of Everyday Learning videos, interactives and classroom activities. These will be distributed free online for use by early childhood educators and families. Curriculum toolkits for educators, conveniently organized in binders, will offer lesson plans and training materials. KET’s Everyday Learning materials are also available for use by all PBS member stations as part of PBS Learning Media. Check it out here: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/everyday-learning/

Keys to Success

KET credits its success to a combination of 1) an organizational commitment to early childhood education,  2) an openness to working collaboratively with other, like-minded organizations in the community, and 3) being strategic about aligning funder priorities with station values.