Title
Recognizing March 20, 2025, as Children First Day in the City of Philadelphia.
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WHEREAS, In 1978, Christie “Cricket” Hastings, Ruth Madden, Happy Fernandez, Marciene Mattleman, Margaret Estey, and Lucy Sayre founded Philadelphia/Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) to ensure government agencies and non-profit institutions were fulfilling their responsibilities to improve the lives of the City’s youth; and
WHEREAS, These citizen activists pushed to redress the Rizzo administration’s legacy of disinvestment in children including failure to repair playgrounds, reduction in youth programs, and hostility toward black teens who protested for better public schools; and
WHEREAS, PCCY immediately formed a task force on juvenile justice and has pushed for dozens of reforms over the past 45 years, including leading the 2018 advocacy to create the Youth Residential Placement Task Force established in 2018, and the Youth Ombudsperson’s Office created in 2022 that added a layer of protection for children who are institutionalized; and
WHEREAS, PCCY’s inaugural report Status of Children and Youth in Philadelphia in 1985, establishing its reputation for basing PCCY’s advocacy efforts on strong research and analysis; the 2025 report on the status of children found that 47% of Philadelphia’s families need a better partner in government to meet the basic needs for healthy child development of their children; and
WHEREAS, PCCY played a multi-decade role in meeting the health care needs of children including persuading the City to create three teen-focused health clinics, providing more than 10,000 children free eye exams and dental care, playing a leadership role in the state’s enactment of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1992, and its current statewide campaign addressing the needs of 147,000 uninsured children; and
WHEREAS, In 1990, PCCY sought to address the lifetime consequences of childhood lead poisoning, paving the way for the City Council to pass groundbreaking lead poisoning prevention ordinances in 2012 and 2018 that reduced childhood exposure to lead by more than 50%; and
WHEREAS, PCCY successfully petitioned to get every city pool open for the summer of 1989
and in 1993 to dramatically expand the summer playstreets program that now provides safe spaces for play and summer meals for children living on nearly 350 blocks in the City; and
WHEREAS, In 1995 Mayor Rendell credited PCCY for convincing him to make full-day kindergarten universally available; Mayor Street, in response to a PCCY call to action, created the office of Early Childhood Education in 1999, and in 2022 Mayor Kenney backed the organization’s call for universal pre-k paving the way for the Philly Pre-K program that now serves more than 5,000 children; and
WHEREAS, In 1998 when new stadiums were being constructed, PCCY worked with leaders in Council to ensure that $1 of every ticket sold at the new venues would support after school programs for children, generating more than $20 million dollars for youth programs; and
WHEREAS, In 2003 PCCY convinced the state that funding rural transit but not Philadelphia school transit was unfair: 65,000 public school students now travel to school for free in Philadelphia, just like peers across the state; and
WHEREAS, PCCY led the effort to amend the home rule charter in 2007 to create the Philadelphia Youth Commission which continues to give 21 youth leaders and their peers a formal perch to advise Council and the Mayor; and
WHEREAS, Youth and parents called on PCCY to tackle educational quality making the case to improve reading instruction which caused PCCY to partner with UAC to form the READ by 4th Campaign, and parents and youth demanded access to mental health services for children and youth, a cause now being advanced by the newly minted Strong Minds Bright Futures Partnership; and
WHEREAS, PCCY ran successful campaigns to allocate 1% of the sales tax and a portion of the cigarette taxes to generate more than $170 million annually for public schools and championed the sweetened beverage tax which supports 352 Philly pre-k programs, paid for the upgrade of more than 30 recreation centers with 40 more in the pipeline, and funds 20 community schools; and
WHEREAS, In 2021, PCCY changed its name to Children First to reinforce its mission of putting children first in public policy and practices. Philadelphia is a better place because of the focused mission and advocacy efforts of Children First; and
WHEREAS, Since 1980, Children First has rallied thousands of parents to call on elected officials to do more to meet the needs of children, helping them make demands on City Council every year and taking busloads of Philadelphians to Harrisburg; and
WHEREAS, In the last ten years these advocacy efforts caused the State and City to increase investments in Philadelphia’s children by more than $2 billion; and
WHEREAS, Since its earliest years, the organization benefited from long-serving, visionary and uniquely dedicated leaders starting with Shelly Yanoff who led the charge for children there for 25 years, followed by her successor, Donna Cooper who’s been at the helm for 13 years; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Hereby recognizes March 20, 2025, as Children First Day in Philadelphia.
FURTHER RESOLVED, That an Engrossed copy of this Resolution be presented to Children First as an expression of gratitude and admiration of the Council of the City of Philadelphia.
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