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Durham has a Smart Start fest

In a room full of adults, leaders of Durham's Partnership for Children turned to a children's book to illustrate 10 years of success since the Smart Start program was launched in Durham.

A collection of child advocates and their supporters gathered Wednesday night at the N.C. Museum of Life and Science to reflect on how Durham has changed since it received the initial funds in 1995 to implement Smart Start. Gov. Jim Hunt chartered the statewide initiative in 1993 to ensure early education for all children under 5 by providing child-care tuition for poor children, equipment for centers and better pay and training for teachers.

Marsha Basloe, executive director of the partnership, formed to oversee Hunt's initiative, read from the book, "Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me." The story tells of a little girl who wants the moon, and how her father finds a way to give it to her.

Family programs get 3,500 donated books

Durham's Partnership for Children, a Smart Start Initiative, said customers at the Barnes and Noble at The Streets at Southpoint bought more than 3,500 new books for disadvantaged children in Durham County during the store's book drive from Nov. 1 to Dec. 19.

The partnership distributed the books to more than 20 agencies serving children in family support and family literacy programs. It also worked with the John Avery Boys and Girls Club, Durham Literacy Center, Durham County Guardian ad Litem Program and Durham County Social Services Department to distribute books to older children.

"Family literacy is important to our mission to ensure children are ready for school," said Karine Stallings, community development manager. "This book drive has given Durham's Partnership for Children an opportunity to connect with the broader Durham community and build awareness for our work to ensure children have what they need to be prepared for kindergarten."

Nonprofit preschool goes dormant

The five former employees of Building Together Ministries did what they do best despite recently being laid off: They banded together for a cause.

The rent had become too steep to afford at Building Together's location on Blount Street in Raleigh, so the nonprofit organization's former staff members loaded filing cabinets, desks and chairs into a moving van Tuesday morning for delivery to a storage facility. Building Together Ministries spent 20 years in the same building that also houses Raleigh Mennonite Church and Hope Charter Elementary School, which branched off from Building Together.

Stephany Hand Biggs, the executive director, hopes to find a new location in Southeast Raleigh to provide low-income families with preschool classes and summer camps. She also hopes to team up with W.E.B. DuBois Community Development Corp., a nonprofit that offers counseling services for all ages.

Partnership aids children's museum

The Orange County Partnership for Young Children announced Thursday a scholarship program and special literacy exhibit that will support The Kidzu Children's Museum.

"The partnership and Kidzu are ideal partners since we are both promoting early childhood development and learning," said Michele Rivest, executive director of the partnership.

The scholarship program will allow more than 100 children in Orange County child-care centers and preschools serving low-income children to visit the museum free.

First School plans going before board

Carrboro Elementary School may become the first in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district to use a new model of teaching pre-K children.

The school board will vote Thursday night on whether to start teaching some 4-year-olds there in a new pre-K program in the 2008-09 school year.

Currently pre-schools serving 3- and 4-year olds, including those housed in elementary buildings, operate independently from the schools where those children will be moving on to kindergarten.