At Achieve Brown County, we believe that change happens when people come together, work together, and create together. A big part of what we do – what our backbone team does – is bring people together to improve, change, and reimagine systems so they better support kids and families across Brown County.
This quarter, our backbone team had the opportunity to hold meetings with State Representative Benjamin Franklin, State Senator Jamie Wall, and State Representative Amaad Rivera-Wagner to introduce each elected leader to our Collective Impact Partnership and discuss collective challenges of our community including childcare access and affordability and early literacy outcomes.
Listening to Community Voices with State Representative Benjamin Franklin
During our meeting with State Representative Benjamin Franklin, we brought together voices from across Brown County—including childcare providers and advocates, workforce leaders, businesses, philanthropists, and parents. We facilitated discussion around childcare access and affordability in our region looking at the challenges parents face in finding affordable childcare and that centers face in running their business and being able to pay livable wages to early childhood education professionals. With input from the workforce leaders and businesses, we also discussed childcare as a workforce issue and talked about how businesses are trying to create solutions for their employees so they can stay in the workforce. Two local grant making organizations talked about how local philanthropy is funding childcare center solutions to create more open slots and culturally relevant classrooms in centers. These conversations highlighted the need for many voices to continue being involved in finding sustainable funding for childcare and to consider how public investment in childcare and early childhood education must be a priority in Wisconsin.
Advancing Early Literacy with Senator Jamie Wall
When State Senator Jamie Wall visited the backbone team in our office, he engaged in dialogue about how Achieve Brown County is driving data-informed solutions to improve third grade reading rates. He learned about how we bring partners together from across our community through our Reading for the Future Initiative and how we believe that all corners of our community have a role to play in raising young readers. Senator Wall recognized the impact of our work, stating:
“I met with Sarah Beckman and her team at Achieve Brown County this week and learned about their efforts to improve local schools, with a particular emphasis on reading in early grades. They’ve brought together a lot of local organizations and some exceptional people to help with their important work.”
A Sign of Support: Meeting with Representative Rivera-Wagner
When State Representative Amaad Rivera-Wagner met with Achieve Brown County Executive Director, Sarah Beckman, they discussed the importance of community collaboration in improving outcomes from cradle-to-career. Inspired by our early literacy work to ensure all kids are reading at grade level by third grade, Representative Amaad Rivera-Wagner left with a sign featuring a quote from The Right to Read documentary to display in his office in Madison: “Once you learn to read, you will forever be free.” -Frederick Douglass
Why These Conversations Matter
Our elected leaders have great influence on policy and resource flows throughout our state. By bringing voices from across our Collective Impact Partnership to our elected leaders, we ensure that the ideas and experiences from our local community are at the forefront of decision-making. These meetings are just the beginning of an ongoing effort to build stronger partnerships between people and our elected leaders.
We appreciate the time and commitment of Representative Franklin, Senator Wall, and Representative Rivera-Wagner in learning about the needs of Brown County’s children and families. Achieve Brown County’s Executive Director, Sarah Beckman, shares, “We remain dedicated to bringing people together and working collectively toward change for our young people—because when we align our efforts, we can ensure more young people have opportunity towards economic mobility.”