Our school has had wonderful successes and offers great educational opportunities to our students and families through the support we receive from folks like you!

When contemplating your support of the Friendship Children's Center, you may want to consider what we feel are two primary reasons to become involved: 1) addressing the critical need for child care within our community; and 2) enhancing the educational experience for the children.

The Critical Need for Child Care

Friendship Children's Center (TIN: 52-160-2643) is a small, non-profit, community-based program. Since 1989, we have provided affordable, high-quality education to children under the age of five in our Northwest DC community. There is a critical need for quality child care and preschool programming in our neighborhood - in fact, our current waitlist for enrollment is well over one and one-half years long. We appreciate the community's needs and are committed to responding to the call for additional programming like ours.

In 2007, we proudly opened our second location and now enroll seventy-five children, almost triple our original capacity.

While we have expansion costs down, we are still counting on you - our current families, alumni, future students, local businesses, neighborhood residents, and community members - to pitch in with your time, talents, and resources to ensure the long-term viability of our program so that we can continue to educate the young children of the Washington DC area for years to come.

Enhancing the Children's Educational Experiences

Through our solid curriculum and the talents of our teachers, the children are exposed to fun learning experiences all the time. We enjoy bringing special visitors and programs to the classrooms, and we attend numerous field trips throughout the year. Often these supplemental experiences require additional staffing and funding.

Parents and friends of the school make financial donations to offset the expense of these activities, and parents regularly help out in the classroom and chaperone field trips. Involvement in the classroom can include the donation of materials to make an art project, or spending a couple of hours sharing your favorite book or songs with us. On field trips, chaperones hold hands, ask questions, and deepen each child's connection with the places they go and the things they see.

When parents become more active in their children's school experiences, a stronger partnership evolves between the teachers and the parents. This partnership results in an enhanced ability to meet the unique needs of each child and reinforces for the children the importance of their parents' place in their education. The impact of this partnership will be felt long after these children graduate from Friendship Children's Center.

So, whether you're a parent who plans to join us for a field trip or a friend who wants to donate time, talents, or resources toward the school's growth, you can be sure that every contribution you make will directly benefit the children.