Parents, Students & Educators to Urge Congress to More Adequately Fund Afterschool Programs at 'Breakfast of Champions' on Wed.

5/12/2003

From: Gretchen Wright of Afterschool Alliance, 202-371-1999

News Advisory:

Several hundred parents, children, educators and advocates from around the country will come to Washington, D.C. Wednesday to urge lawmakers to reject President Bush's proposed 40 percent cut to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) afterschool program for Fiscal Year 2004. Organized by the Afterschool Alliance, the "Afterschool Challenge" will kick off with a Breakfast of Champions at:

WHEN: 8:30 AM Wednesday, May 14

WHERE: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room G-50

WHO: Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Christopher Dodd (D-CT), John Ensign (R-NV), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Patty Murray (D-WA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Debbie A. Stabenow (D-MI) & Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Michael Honda (D-CA), Jay Inslee (D-WA), Dale Kildee (D-MI), Nita Lowey (D-NY), Denise Majette (D-GA) and Ralph Regula (R-OH)

At the Breakfast of Champions, Members of Congress will join the Afterschool Alliance in giving awards to seven outstanding afterschool supporters:

-- Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Illinois; -- Betsy Bradley, Executive Director of the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson; -- The Danville/Boyle County Chamber of Commerce of Kentucky; -- Dover, New Hampshire Police Chief William Fenniman, Jr.; -- Mary Marks of the Anchorage, Alaska school board; -- The Stark Community Foundation of Stark County, Ohio; and -- Elaine Wynn, Co-Chair of Greater Las Vegas Inner City Games in Nevada.

John DeStefano, Mayor of New Haven, Connecticut and President of the National League of Cities, will also speak at the Breakfast.

After the Breakfast of Champions, activists will deliver paper light bulbs with messages about afterschool that were sent by children and parents from across the country. The messages were created last October at Lights On Afterschool! events. Actor and children's activist Arnold Schwarzenegger serves as National Chair of Lights On Afterschool!, the Afterschool Alliance's annual rally for afterschool, which is set for October 9 this year. Schwarzenegger, who is Honorary Chair of the Afterschool Alliance, is scheduled to testify about the need for afterschool programs before House and Senate Committees on Tuesday.

President Bush's budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2004 calls for a cut from the current $1 billion funding to just $600,000. That cut would deny afterschool programs to more than half a million children. In the No Child Left Behind Act, Congress authorized $1.75 billion for the 21st CCLC program for Fiscal Year 2004.

As many as 15 million children in the United States leave school each afternoon without a safe place to go. Research shows that afterschool programs keep kids safe, help working families and improve academic achievement.

The Afterschool Alliance is a nonprofit public awareness and advocacy organization supported by a group of public, private, and nonprofit entities dedicated to ensuring that all children and youth have access to afterschool programs by 2010. More information is available at: http://www.afterschoolalliance.org.