The Business of Change
Paul Fisher would like to talk about an unusual experiment taking place in Savannah. Fisher is the president of the Savannah Early Childhood Foundation, a group launched in 2011 by eight Rotary and Kiwanis clubs.
These business leaders wanted to figure out how to take stronger, more meaningful actions toward ending crime, poverty, teen pregnancy, low educational outcomes, and truancy. All of these challenges, Fisher says, are multi-generational, cyclical, and, unfortunately, disproportionate by race.
The Foundation discovered a significant deficit of parenting skills in Savannah’s neighborhoods that are most afflicted with the city’s worst problems. And in these neighborhoods, the pervasive belief is that a child’s education begins when a child is school-aged. The Foundation also uncovered a dearth of high-quality childcare and noted how the resources that are available don’t try to help children until they are at least 3 years old.
Find out how Fisher and the Foundation connected business leaders and faith-based groups already working on the same streets and for the same families to join together and share a focus on serving Savannah’s youngest citizens.
Then, go back in our Innovation Video series to hear Sayge Medlin explain how far too often assumptions inhibit our capacity to truly help others.