courage & commitment
our beginnings
The seeds of Cradle to Career were planted when a few of our future Steering Committee members got inspired by a Harlem Children’s Zone conference in New York in 2009. When they returned, they asked Live Oak County Supervisor John Leopold to call together leaders from the Health and Human Services and Live Oak School District to begin shaping a plan. The group decided to start small — in just one preschool classroom at Live Oak Elementary School. As soon as that decision was made, the C2C initiative began to take shape.
“The key thing is to start small, with a small group of people, and focus on a specific population. So we started with pre-K and focused on the parents and got good at listening.”
- C2C Steering Committee Member
growing together
In 2015, bilingual and bicultural partners from Santa Cruz Community Health worked with the Preschool teachers to create a welcoming space to connect directly with parents at their monthly meetings. They held C2C’s foundational “Hopes and Dreams” workshop, which resulted in parents identifying the three original goals for the C2C initiative: Good Health, Good Education, and Good Character. These initial parent meetings set the tone for the entire C2C initiative, and now take place with incoming preschools families every fall.
C2C has grown its cohort every year and is currently at all four Live Oak School District sites. C2C is expanding to a county-wide level to include new school sites within Santa Cruz City Schools, San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District, and Soquel Union Elementary School District.
Over the course of several years, we worked with parents to form a Parent Leadership Committee (PLC), and an official Steering Committee composed of leaders from our partner agencies as well as elected PLC representatives. We fundraised to hire Family Engagement Coordinators who have been instrumental in engaging and organizing parents. At every step, we have rooted ourselves in shared values and goals that constantly re-inspire us.
Transforming a community takes time and trust — Cradle to Career is lucky to have parent leaders and community partners who have stayed united year after year to show that change is possible. These relationships are priceless, and are the key to a thriving, equitable future.
read more abouT our model
“It's really the community organizing that has made c2c different from the other models, because while others still have the same players involved, C2C is coming from what the parents want and having the parents feel empowered in a meaningful way.”
- C2C Steering Committee Member