You Can Make a Difference This #GivingTuesday

You can make a difference in the lives of America’s children this #GivingTuesday by giving to the Children’s Defense Fund as generously as you can. We promise to use every dollar you share wisely to help our most vulnerable children. Your support helps further CDF’s Leave No Child Behind^® mission to ensure every child a healthy start, a head start, a fair start, a safe start and a moral start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.

You can also support us by following us on Twitter today @childdefender. We’re almost 25,000 child advocates strong and we’d love your help putting us over the top!

Beating the Odds in DC and California

The most important lesson I learned is that being happy is not about having with you what you loved in the past, but learning to love what you have in the present.

- Monica Chica, 2014 DC Beat the Odds^® Scholar

As we enter this season of gratitude, we are grateful for your support throughout the year. This month we celebrated five extraordinary young leaders at the DC Beat the Odds^® Awards Dinner with more than 300 advocates and supporters. Each high school senior, this year five young women, received a scholarship, laptop computer, guidance through the college admissions process and much, much more. You can watch their Beat the Odds stories here. At the celebration, each felt the love and support and recognition from everyone in the room including inspiring former Beat the Odds scholars who have gone on to become doctors and lawyers, teachers and engineers, and good citizens.

2014 DC Beat the Odds scholars	Monica Chica	Aquera Gilliam
Diamond May	Hally Moreno	Carolina Sosa

The first week of December, CDF-California will be celebrating five more Beat the Odds scholars in Los Angeles. We’re grateful this high-profile event attracts a red carpet full of Hollywood stars, but the true stars of the evening will be the scholars and their stories of grit and determination to overcome the odds and excel academically while giving back to their communities. Watch for their stories in December.

Chase Moore	Elizabeth Lopez	Sequoia Canada	Timothy Walker	Zachary Byrge

Honoring Superman

Every day we are losing thousands of young people because the odds are too much for them. It shouldn’t be too much. This is America. We can do better than this. We should do better than this. So we will celebrate our young people who are beating the odds but CDF is in the business of changing the odds and we have a great leader, who has shown us the way and I will be forever indebted.

- Geoffrey Canada, Chair of CDF Board of Directors 2008-2014

Watch and listen to his full remarks.

He’s been called “Superman” and been on TIME magazine’s 100 most influential leaders list. So on November 18^th we were thrilled to also honor Geoffrey Canada for his extraordinary work as founder, CEO and now president of the board of trustees for the Harlem Children’s Zone and for his great leadership of the CDF Board of Directors from 2008 - 2014. Marian Wright Edelman called Canada a “Great Champion for America’s Children” and thanked him for his service. She presented him with an engraved, brass ship’s lantern as a symbol of the leadership and mentorship Canada has provided to so many others working with the Children’s Defense Fund, all trying to level the playing field for America’s children.

Major Step Forward for Child Care

On November 19^th, President Obama signed into law the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 (S.1086). CCDBG provides low-income, working families with subsidies to help reduce child care costs. Since CCDBG was last authorized by Congress in 1996, much has been learned about the importance of quality early environments for children’s developing minds. Congress now has taken a major step forward for children and families by guaranteeing new health and safety protections for children in child care, improving the quality of child care, and making it easy for families to maintain stable access to care. Securing funding to implement quality improvements and serve all eligible children and families is the work that lies ahead. Learn more on how S.1086 will improve the quality of child care for children and families across the nation.

Coming Attraction: CDF Freedom Schools^® Expansion in Detroit

As a native of Motor City, CDF’s Sheba Rogers wants to give back and help improve the quality of education in the community where she was raised—especially since Detroit has one of the most troubled public school systems in the country. This month Sheba packed up her office in D.C. and headed to Detroit to take on the enormous opportunity of starting a Regional CDF Freedom Schools office to help organize at least 10 CDF Freedom Schools sites across the city. The CDF Freedom Schools program works and will make a difference to low-income children in Detroit. Keep up the great work, Sheba—we’re all excited to serve more of Detroit's neediest children. Learn more about the CDF Freedom Schools program.

Unfinished Business

As Congress resumes its lame duck session to conclude unfinished business, CDF is urging Congress to act now to extend funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for four more years. CHIP provides more than 8 million children in working families access to comprehensive, affordable health coverage. If Congress does not act soon, two million children enrolled in CHIP could lose their health coverage, and millions more would be forced to pay substantially more for less coverage. We are working closely with our national partners to raise awareness about the impending loss of CHIP funding, including running advertisements like this one in Washington, D.C. papers. Please share and help us spread the word.

Leaving Poor Children and Low-Income Working Families Behind

As we go to press there is talk of a Congressional deal on a “tax extenders” package that would move the nation far backwards in its ability to meet the needs of poor children and low-income working families and fill the gaps in our nation’s economy. The package of tax breaks, which would cost more than $400 billion over ten years and would not be paid for, favors large corporations and totally ignores the need to reduce poverty and assist low income working families with children. It makes a number of temporary tax breaks permanent and extends others for two years, but does not make permanent or extend improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit that are set to expire at the end of 2017. If these improvements are not extended, 8 million children will fall into or deeper into poverty. The package must not move ahead. President Obama has promised a veto of the package. If a veto is necessary, it must be sustained by Congress.

Wishing You and Your Family a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving

We wanted to share this child’s prayer by Marian Wright Edelman.

O God, I thank You for this place called home for family, food, fellowship, and fun for the freedom to pray, sing, and gather together to celebrate Your goodness as one. I thank You for our land and all those who peopled it for Native Americans who loved, respected and protected the earth for pilgrims who came in search of freedom to worship for immigrants who came in search of freedom to speak their beliefs for those who came against their will but who adopted and worked to achieve America’s dream as their own. For those who tilled the soil, forged the frontiers, built the cities, cooked and cleaned and raised their families and held together communities. I thank You for all who worked for justice and sacrificed their lives to make us a freer and better nation. On this Thanksgiving, I thank You for America and for the dream of America we must seek to fulfill for all each day. God bless the world and every child through America.