Gayle and LaRonda Go to Washington

by Gayle Williams
Family Service Worker, CDI Head Start

LaRonda Davison and I, both your representatives on the SEIU Local 99 Executive Board, traveled to Washington, D.C., in May to lobby Congress for Early Education funding.

It was great to represent our SEIU Local 99 brothers and sisters in the early education field. And I was excited to see our International Union take the lead in assuring that federally funded early education workers across the nation have a voice, making sure our elected leaders know our stories. We told them how increased early education funding will support children and families. We also explained to these leaders that we want to build respect for our profession, improving educational and career advancement opportunities and increasing our wages to compare to other education workers so that we can better care for our own families. We want to be recognized as early education professionals, not babysitters.

I was encouraged as we spoke with U.S. Representative Laura Richardson, who told us that we can definitely count on her support. We also visited with U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s Legislative Assistant who informed us that Senator Boxer has been on the forefront in addressing the needs of Early Education. Even before President Obama released his budget proposal, Senator Boxer had requested that he increase funding for Early Education.

Before we started our journey up the hill to meet with these leaders, we heard from our union’s newly-elected President, Mary Kay Henry—the first woman president of our International Union! The room was at an all time high!! Her words geared us up even more to speak courageously about what this funding would do for our Head Start Programs, Child Care Centers, and Licensed Daycare Providers, such as expand services to more children, increase nutritional services and address childhood obesity, and allow us to retain high quality services and workers who provide those services.