Born Learning Trail for Coatesville

Born Learning Trails.mp3
This is the best video about the Born Learning Trail that I could find

Ms. Mary Anne Feeley of United Way of Chester County made a presentation about the Born Learning Trail program.

This program is focused on creating early learning opportunities to help children and their parents and other care givers through the installation of a “Learning Trail” to provide information for children to learn.

The United Way has partnered with the Coatesville Youth Imitative of the Brandywine Health Foundation, and Chester County Intermediate Unit CCIU which has a Head Start here at Middle School

The “Born Learning Trail” is a kit that United Way Worldwide provides. It is purchased with grant funding to install at various locations throughout Chester County. 

Ms. Feeley, “The point of the trail is to engage communities in early learning activities with young children.

Those of you who are educators those of you who are parents know how important it is, for a child to get a group start in school; to get interested in learning, to be shown colors and letters, to really get a grasp of reading and numbers and so forth. And we all know of course that school success makes for a successful engaged citizen when people grow up.

The whole point that we are united about at United Way, if you’ll forgive the pun, is early learning for the benefit of the entire community and raising informed and capable adults…”

“It’s an engagement campaign, which means; ‘Trails’ are an implement, if you will, of a campaign to make communities more aware of how important it is to give quality early learning experiences to young children.

We know that many parents can’t afford or are on a waiting list for subsidized day care that’s high quality. Many times young children are left with neighbors or friends so the parents can work. And we want those folks to be able to engage with the children in early learning activities.

So the thinking is that we put these opportunities, these ‘Trails’ in place in key locations throughout Chester County where families have access, the general public has access… We also typically do a kick off campaign; which we want to do and hand out brochures and get the entire community to know that it’s there and how to use it…”

There is a trail at the Pickering Center for Arts and Technology in Phoenixville, PA

Ms. Feeley, “A couple Kevin & Lisa donated the kit in honor of their still born son. They wanted to create a memory for him that would help other people appreciate their young children. It was very, very moving. And then CTDI is the company that Mr. Parsons’ family owned. So he got the whole corporate workforce out…”

“This spring on ‘Comcast Thursday’ the Comcast crew put a “Born Learning Trail” at the Charles K. Melton Center for Arts and Communication in West Chester, PA…”

For the project here we’re looking at Ash Park for a location. We think a lot of families can benefit. We’d like to do a kickoff event after we install the trail…

We do have a corporate group that wants to send a bunch of men out to cut the sign posts, attach the signs. They are actually bringing a little bit of money for the materials to it, so that we don’t have to spend all our funds in one location. And they are very excited about doing it… The name of the company is Toobox.com. They’re basically people about in their thirties. So we thought it would be a good partnership with the ‘Coatesville Youth Initiative’ adolescents…

There is an educational component involved with the volunteers that install the trail. I’ve had corporate executives say, ‘Wow, this is really cool, I’ve never thought about doing that with my child’… It’s also important of course for those adolescents and we’re hoping that, in their helping to install this trail that we are conveying that message that counting on them to be invested in the next generation and in that trail and in that park.”

In answer to Coatesville City Councilperson Ms. Jorgenson’s question concerning when they propose to do it, Ms. Feeley replied, “They would like to do it the first weekend in October.”

Interim Coatesville City Manager Ted Reed said, “There is already the blacktop in place there in Ash Park. As you come in through the entrance, I think it comes in on the side of the swimming pool.”

Councilperson Jarrell Brazzle asked about the timeline for the completion of the project. Ms. Feeley said, “The first weekend in October is our preference if at all possible… the awareness event would be later…if you have Halloween activities…”

City Council President Ed Simpson said, “We have parade actually.”

Ms. Maria Hess said the Coatesville Clean Up Committee would be happy to come out and help out.

The City Council voted to approve the “Born Learning Trail”.