Daisy Days And DeKalb CEO Pledges A Quarter Million To Lyon Farm

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A Letter From Kristin

Dear Friends,

I love that GEEARS contains multitudes. While our vision is “Every child has a strong early foundation to reach their full potential,” our methods for achieving that vision are a beautiful tapestry. We advocate for effective policies. We educate, inform, and mobilize stakeholders for collective action. We amplify innovative and evidence-based practices and research.

Over the past month or so, we at GEEARS have especially focused on our role as a convener of partners, donors, advocates, community leaders, and others who are a vital part of our mission. Looking back on these gatherings, I’m struck by how wide—and effective—a net they’ve cast through our big, diverse early childhood community.

Our second Early Childhood Changemakers Summit in late August, for instance, brought together community leaders and advocates from all over Georgia—urban, rural, and everywhere in between. That meant that the sessions about the nuts and bolts of leadership and advocacy were all over the map as well. In a mere day and a half, the bonding and learning happened at a rapid pace!

Speaking of speed, I loved hearing from Elana Meyers Taylor—the keynote speaker at our Annual Luncheon on September 17th —the wisdom one gains from hurtling down an ice chute at 75 miles per hour. You’d think it’d be a leap for Elana to connect striving and failure in Olympics-level bobsledding with the need to invest in early childhood, but she did make those connections in her talking points, with incredible grace. The event inspired our 200+ attendees to invest more than $140,000 in GEEARS.

Finally, on September 29th, we gathered to make change for young children through our electoral process. At GEEARS’ 2026 Early Childhood Candidate Forum, candidates for statewide office went on camera at Georgia Public Broadcasting to answer GEEARS’ questions about their early childhood priorities, values, and policy intentions. And to further ensure that early childhood policy has the spotlight it deserves this campaign season, we also used the event to share the insights and priorities gleaned from more than 600 likely voters who responded to the latest poll of we’ve commissioned every four years since 2010.

I'm equally excited about the convenings we have coming up—the November 19th launch of PAACT’s first impact report, celebrating eight years in the Atlanta community; the newest iteration of our speaker series, the First Five Forum, launching on December 3rd with Dr. Stan Sonu discussing the case for “systemic empathy;” and our annual Strolling Thunder, which will bring families with little kids to the Gold Dome to meet with their legislators on Thursday, January 28th 2027.

These gatherings are more than events on a calendar. Convening is central to our approach at GEEARS because bringing the right people together creates opportunities to build relationships, align around shared priorities, and move from awareness to collective action.

I look forward to continuing to bring our community together—and to seeing you at a GEEARS convening in the months ahead!

Kristin

It’s Our Last Chance to #ProtectHeadStart

Last month, we told you about the federal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which has the potential to weaken the performance standards of Head Start, one of Georgia’s most important sources of early care, education, and family supports.

A recent gathering of Head Start providers from around the state highlighted so many reasons we should stand behind this program:

Investing in families, particularly those with low incomes, with such a high-quality program yields positive economic returns that can reverberate through generations.
Head Start’s support for families is comprehensive and holistic, recognizing that children’s early learning is inextricably linked with their family’s well-being.
Head Start’s “extras”—like tooth-brushing, free diapers, and hours that mirror the workday—are actually essentials that contribute to a family’s health and economic mobility.

As a nation, we have today, October 6th—which marks the end of the NPRM’s 60-day public comment period—to raise our voices in support of Head Start. GEEARS will help you join the effort!

Go here to learn more about the NPRM and take action by submitting a public comment of your own. Every comment matters!

Looking for more ways to take action? You can use our action alert to contact Congress, share your Head Start story, or help spread the word via our social media toolkit.

GEEARS’ Annual Luncheon Celebrated Some of our Heroes—and Raised $140,000!

“Winning the Olympic gold medal is easier than parenting!”

At GEEARS’ Annual Luncheon on September 17th, more than 200 sponsors, partners, and guests got that nugget of wisdom from someone who truly knows of what she speaks—Elana Meyers Taylor, a bobsledder who’s amassed a collection of Olympic medals while raising two little boys.

As if we’d fed her a tailored prompt (we didn’t) Elana called out the two-generation approach to supporting both children and families, and credited the importance of several Atlanta early education powerhouses like Easterseals, Children’s Health Care of Atlanta, and the Atlanta Speech School in supporting her journey as a parent.

In addition to her keynote. . .

Easterseals North Georgia, Sheltering Arms, and the YMCA of Metro Atlanta received our Early Childhood Advocate Award for their tremendous Head Start advocacy.
Liz Blake, whose philanthropy supports both children and their mothers, received our Early Childhood Champion award.
The Georgia Chamber Foundation received the Early Childhood Partner Award for their work with GEEARS promoting family-friendly workplace policies.

These honorees are all members of GEEARS’ alliance but really, so was every luncheon attendee. They all got our message loud and clear: an investment in GEEARS helps drive meaningful, systemic change for Georgia’s children, from birth to age five, and their families.

You can express your value in this mission even if you didn’t get to join us at lunch. Click the link below to contribute to GEEARS.

Help Shape Georgia’s Child Care Investments

Your voice can help shape how hundreds of millions of federal dollars are invested in Georgia’s child care system each year.

The Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), in partnership with Child Trends, is gathering input for Georgia’s statewide Child Care Needs Assessment, a process that will help inform how the state prioritizes and invests Georgia's Child Care Development Fund dollars in the years ahead.

GEEARS is encouraging parents, caregivers, early educators, child care providers, business and community leaders, and advocates across Georgia to make their voices heard. Broad participation is especially important to ensure that the needs and experiences of children, birth to five, and the families and communities who support them are reflected in this assessment.

Leave a message of up to two minutes
Callers may remain anonymous
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

All the messages will be aggregated and analyzed to inform the state's needs assessment. Whether you share a success story, a challenge, or an idea for improving access, affordability, or quality, your perspective matters.

Please call and encourage your networks to do the same. The more voices DECAL hears from across Georgia, the better the state can understand and respond to the needs of young children and the grownups who support them.

Atlanta Expands Paid Leave for City Employees

The Atlanta City Council has unanimously approved legislation establishing 12 weeks of paid leave for City of Atlanta employees welcoming a child through birth, adoption, or foster care. This is a significant and exciting expansion from the City’s previous policy, which provided six weeks of leave for primary caregivers and two weeks for secondary caregivers.

The new policy was shaped by recommendations from a study group of community experts, including GEEARS and PAACT, convened earlier this year to review best practices and develop recommendations that informed the final legislation.

Led by Councilmember Matt Westmoreland and supported by all of his Council colleagues, the legislation marks the most significant expansion of paid leave for City employees since Atlanta first established its parental leave policy 11 years ago. That policy has helped build momentum for similar policies in local governments across Georgia.

We appreciate Councilmember Westmoreland’s longtime partnership with GEEARS and PAACT and his enduring commitment to the needs of Atlanta families with young children. We look forward to amplifying Atlanta’s leadership and encouraging more communities to follow suit!

Early Childhood Changemaker to Produce a Family Health Event in Bulloch County

On one hand, October 17th's Third Annual Bump & Beyond Community Baby Shower in Statesboro, is a fun, sweet event, where new parents and moms-to-be can connect with parenting resources, get their car seats installed, score some free diapers, and board a Book Bus with their little ones.

But Lora Cooper, an Early Childhood Changemaker and Executive Director of two Bulloch-County focused organizations, knows that Bump & Beyond isn’t just festivities and goodie-bags. It's a one-day oasis of care in a figurative desert for parents of young children.

“In Georgia, and particularly in Bulloch County,” Lora says, “we have a high maternal mortality rate. We have the only birthing hospital in at least six counties and people often have to come here for their OB/GYN and pediatrician too. Some people don’t get any prenatal care because of transportation challenges.”

While an event like Bump & Beyond works hard to fill some of these gaps, especially in terms of its educational resources and community connections for parents, for Lora, it’s also an opportunity to advocate. It’s a chance to say, The community can do a lot but nothing replaces essential services like Medicaid-funded doulas and a home visiting program that can serve many new moms, not just high-risk ones.

This is what the Early Childhood Changemakers are all about. They help individuals in their communities and illuminate the systemic problems that need more systematic solutions. Events like Bump & Beyond are a start.

If you’re in the Bulloch County area, we invite you to attend this big, boisterous baby shower. While you’re there, seek out Lora Cooper! Join her in amplifying the big issues in this rural community that can only be addressed by big solutions—more hospitals and medical providers; more affordable child care providers; more services that keep birthing and lactating moms safe and healthy for their little ones. Sometimes it just takes one voice like Lora’s, one event like Bump & Beyond, to raise the awareness that can drive change.

Examining Child Care in the Rural South: Perspectives for Policy and Practice

GEEARS has co-authored an important study of child care in rural regions of the Southeastern United States, including parts of Georgia. Relatively little is understood about how rural families, providers, and community stakeholders such as business leaders perceive and experience the child care systems within their communities. Yet policymakers, who form systems that impact these communities, need to know what they are going through as they try to engage in the workforce and provide their young children with high-quality care and early learning.

With the support of the Southern Education Foundation, GEEARS and our partner researchers from Mississippi and Missouri conducted surveys, interviews, and focus groups to learn how rural communities experience and understand the child care options available to them. Through respondents’ perspectives, the research examined the workforce and community ecosystems that depend vitally on child care that’s accessible, affordable, and high-quality. Our findings also highlight the strengths and resources that sustain these rural communities.

Examining Child Care in the Rural South: Perspectives for Policy and Practice offers valuable insights to inform more responsive, locally-grounded policymaking and strengthen efforts to support children, families, and the early childhood workforce at state and federal levels.

GEEARS in Brief

GEEARS’ 2026 Early Childhood Candidate Forum garnered coverage from GPB, WSB, and The Georgia Recorder!
Our Annual Luncheon also attracted attention from outlets including 11Alive, Metro Atlanta CEO, and The Georgia Chamber.
Our prodigious Head Start advocacy included an expert voice in The Saporta Report and a look back on a Fall 2025 Head Start crisis that GEEARS helped avert with several partners, including the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, which recounted the story.

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