Dear Groundwork Team, Lynanne and I have finally recovered from a very busy Advocacy Day. Thank you for all of your positive feedback. Your efforts to make the event successful reinvigorated our efforts as we were walking the halls of the Statehouse this week on behalf of Ohio's most vulnerable children. As you know, our budget request is for a $22 million new investment over the biennium in Ohio's early childhood education system. This budget request would partially correct an accounting injustice for 38 Ohio counties, which impacts almost 40% of the children served by publicly funded child care. As the leading independent statewide advocate for early care and education, we believe this is the critical next step as we incrementally build our early childhood education system, even in a tight budget. As the Ohio Senate deliberates on the state budget, in the spirit of Advocacy Day, we call on you again to share Groundwork's case for early childhood education and details about our budget proposal with your legislators. You can also find these resources on our website. Find your legislator's contact information here to follow-up and make sure you send your Advocacy Day thank you letters if you haven't already! Your efforts are critical to our success and we are grateful for your commitment to Ohio kids. Please contact us if we can be of further support to your local advocacy for our unified goals and enjoy the sampling of photos below that evidence the powerful impact we have when we work together. Thank you and enjoy the long holiday weekend, Shannon Jones Executive Director
