NON PROFIT | june 2010

Small Steps Nurturing Center

The brightly painted walls of the David Weekley Home serving as a schoolhouse for Small Steps Nurturing Center, a top-of-the-line private preschool, are covered in project-oriented curriculum (“camping” is the theme of one classroom, “transportation” of another). From the paintings and dictation of young children, one might guess at the steep tuition of such a challenging program.

However, the population of children counted among its students must live within the seven area codes surrounding the school and be economically disadvantaged. The school has no lack of applications—two- to six-year-old children living at or below the poverty line are not an uncommon occurrence in the Houston area. As HISD struggles to incorporate 100% Spanish-speaking preschool children and those who qualify as “homeless,” many more are unable to attend the only alternative—quality daycares for children two years of age and private preschools for three- and four-year-olds. Small Steps Nurturing Center is working to change all that. The first campus came out of a need seen by an Impact Church of Christ Vacation Bible School that took into account the impoverished children in the area of the First Ward. The second campus, at Jensen Drive in the Fifth Ward, is currently hoping to expand so that it can provide faith-based and high-quality early education and care to more children.

About two-thirds of the children at SSNC are picked up by teachers in vans, to address the transportation problems of many of the families. The students are served two nutritious meals and one snack every day, and the school maintains a maximum teacher/child ratio of 1 to 8. With brilliant young child specialists serving as the teaching staff and on-site therapists who engage in play therapy with the children, the atmosphere is one of positive change.

Lydia Jones, the Development Director, shared that while most middle-class preschool aged children hear 11 million words per year, economically disadvantaged children hear nearly half of that—only 6 million words per year. Nearly one-third of those are negative words. The SET for Life social and emotional curriculum employed by SSNC and its therapists is geared at creating a positive environment and impacting the entire Houston area through its recognition of the dignity of every human person and real change to that end. “A quality preschool program for economically at-risk children has been proven to enhance long-term educational attainment levels, income and family stability while reducing crime rates,” explains Jones. These research studies show that the economic return to society is over $8 per every $1 invested.

Organizations such as the A.D. Players rehearse plays with the children, a musician leads them in music class, and a creative movement class is a weekly ancillary. Organizations such as the MD Anderson YMCA, the Houston Food Bank, the Neuhaus Education Center, the UH Center for Hearing and Speech and Dr. Michelle Forrester, the on-site psychologist, are all collaborative partners with the nonprofit which assure an environment of success and interdisciplinary education. In addition, the school believes it is a powerful tool for young children to tell their personal stories. With the help of Rice University’s prestigious School Literacy and Culture Project, the very young children, through dictation and dramatization, explore their own creative and imaginative voices.

Thanks to generous donors, of whom there is no end of need, the school’s salaries, operating costs, meals and transportation are provided completely tuition-free. Parents volunteer ten hours per year, and often much more, as well as attend parenting classes that encourage them to engage with their children as not only loving caregivers but also as the primary teachers of their very young children. Confidence in their own abilities strengthens the bonds between children and parents and the parents and the school.

Some individual donors and private foundations prefer to sponsor a child for the year or provide items for the organization’s “Wish List.” Small Steps’ three events, the Small Steps Energy Classic (a golf tournament), the Clays Classic and the new Wine Classic, provide the majority of donations that support the organization. The Small Steps Energy Classic Gold Tournament numbers various prominent individuals from oil and gas companies, law firms and investment companies among its advisory board and participants. The Small Steps Wine Classic is another fun way for donors to come together and be treated to a professional wine educator/sommelier’s selections while raising money for this notable cause.

For more information or to make a donation,

please visit: www.ssnc.org.