Speaker: Mai Miksic, Managing Director, Early Learning & Education
Introduce yourself and tell us why fighting poverty and expanding opportunity is
so important to our region.
Mai Miksic: Hi, I'm Mai Miksic and i'm the Managing Director for Early Learning and Education here at United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. Fighting poverty and expanding opportunity for all is so important to our region, not just economically, but because it's the right thing to do...everybody has the right to live to their fullest potential and they need to be able to set goals for themselves and they need systems and institutions to help them achieve those goals.
Describe how a gift to United Way helps people and families build the skills and support they need to rise above the poverty line.
Mai Miksic: There are already so many resources and systems and institutions that are out there designed to help families climb out of poverty, but they're not set up for families to be able to navigate, they're not easy to use. There are barriers and that's why a gift to the United Way really matters. Here at United Way, we're working with families to help them navigate those resources, to get them to the systems, institutions that are already designed to help them climb out of poverty.
Share a story of a person whose life was positively impacted or an example of a solution made possible through donors' support.
Mai Miksic: The early childhood providers that we fund, they set the foundation for lifelong learning for young children. They changed the trajectory of those kids lives without early childhood education programs. Children are not able to start on equal footing with their peers from more privileged backgrounds. I was actually one of the beneficiaries of such programs. I was a head start kid. I came to this country as an immigrant and did not speak a word of English. And because of an early learning education program, high quality program at that, I was able to start school be on the same footing as my peers from more advantaged backgrounds. And I don't think that I would be where I am today if I hadn't had that high quality early childhood education experience.
