It’s been a tremendous year. Enjoy the story of our 40th Anniversary year, in pictures, and support our work in 2014 and beyond with your contribution.

We began the year with children from the DC General Homeless Shelter joining with children from Maya Angelou Public Charter Schools in a special CDF Freedom Schools® National Day of Service. Mallory Hagan, the newly crowned Miss America 2013, was a special guest and read aloud to the children during Harambee!

We marched to 'Protect Children, Not Guns'.

"I am confident that most Americans value children’s safety and right to live more than they value the right of anyone to have assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. If America can’t stand up for its children, it doesn’t stand for anything." -  Marian Wright Edelman

In partnership with Moms Demand Action, CDF organized a ‘Have A Heart’ press conference and lobby day on Valentine’s Day 2013. Nearly fifty advocates hand-delivered homemade ‘Have a Heart’ Valentines and broken-hearted Teddy Bears to every member of Congress. Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, mother of slain Chicago youth Hadiya Pendleton, joined Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, in the press conference which garnered local and national print, television and radio coverage.

We celebrated extraordinary young people beating the odds in Minnesota in May. We encouraged them to reach for their future with scholarships and leadership development training.

And again in Houston, Texas in June.

We trained more than 1,000 college-aged youths to administer the CDF Freedom Schools integrated reading curriculum to children back in their community.

A record number of children were served through the CDF Freedom Schools program and were inspired with a love for reading and learning at 185 sites in 91 cities in 29 states!

CDF Freedom Schools served the most vulnerable children, giving children in juvenile justice facilities in California renewed hope and empowering them to 'Make a Difference' - in themselves, their community, and their nation.

In partnership with the Educational Testing Service, we convened our third in a series of symposia focused on closing the achievement gaps for Black boys and men. “Black Male Teens: Moving to Success in the High School Years” brought together young adult leaders, policymakers, researchers, practitioners and advocates to tackle the reality that American high schools are failing many Black young men, leaving them unprepared for college and career opportunities.

We continued to sound the siren for common-sense gun safety laws as part of the 2013 CDF Freedom Schools National Day of Social Action...

And with leaders of our Young Advocacte Leadership Training (YALT) program.

Our spirits were renewed by the great preaching and teaching of the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss Jr. and others at the 19th annual Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry.

We celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington but reminded the nation to hear, heed, and follow Dr. King's warnings about what we need to do to make America America.

“He [Dr. King] would be calling for a close of the morally obscene wealth and income gap in this country that has left millions of people out of our economy. He would be calling for a poor people’s campaign, as he was when he was killed in Memphis – when we’ve got 46 million rather than 35 million poor Americans and 16.2 million poor children rather than 11 million when he died." - Marian Wright Edelman on Face the Nation

We partnered with other organizations through a Strong Start for children campaign, pushing for early childhood development and learning investments for our youngest children.

We celebrated our 40th Anniversary at the Kennedy Center and honored CDF alumna Hillary Rodham Clinton.

During the Children’s Sabbaths weekend we joined the Washington National Cathedral to heed the prophet Micah’s call to ‘beat our swords into plowshares’ and transformed illegal guns confiscated by the D.C. police department into garden tools on the grounds of the Cathedral. That same weekend, more than a thousand other places of worship observed the Children's Sabbath to more deeply inspire and engage their own members in faithful action to protect children from poverty and gun violence.

At the close of the year, we honored five extraordinary high school students in California with Beat the Odds scholarships and leadership development.

Please continue to support our work to ensure a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood for every child. Make your year-end, tax-deductible contribution today.