Child Care Aware® of America hosted its first Raise Your Hand for Child Care virtual event. This event included a live reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) and Twitter chat to conclude our Raise Your Hand for Child Care five-month webinar series, which was created to build awareness about federal and state policy opportunities to support child care.

For years Child Care Aware® of America has shared one message: affordable, high quality child care matters. It matters for children and it matters for families.

Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) staff recently went to California to train members on advocacy and policy updates. CCAoA staff included Director of Policy Michelle Noth McCready, Senior Government Affairs Associate Nick Vucic and Communications and Public Affairs Specialist Sara Miller.

Recently, Child Care Aware® of America had the great pleasure of traversing to Nevada for not one, but two advocacy trainings. Starting off with a training in Reno, hosted by the Children’s Cabinet and finishing with a training in Las Vegas, hosted at United Way of Southern Nevada, Child Care Aware® of America’s policy staff had a great opportunity to meet and work with a lot of great early childhood advocates in Nevada.

Today I joined First Lady Michelle Obama, Sesame Street and many coalition partners at the White House to continue the mission to end the childhood obesity epidemic. Let’s Move! and Sesame Workshop are partnering with the produce industry to use Elmo, Cookie Monster and Sesame Street’s other furry characters free of charge to help market fruits and veggies to children. Elmo and Rosita joined the First Lady to talk about how important healthy options are.

Last week, Nick Vucic, Government Affairs Associate, and Sara Miller, Communications and Public Affairs Specialist, flew across the country for a trip to Helena, Montana for a two-day on-site advocacy training.