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We love the hebrew phrase - V’shinantam L’vaneha—And you shall teach them unto your children - as it speaks to the Jewish value of our collective social justice work.
 The Efshar Project exists to increase opportunities to nurture and strengthen high quality educational practices within Jewish early childhood settings in Colorado. Like all of you, the Efshar team believes this starts with having a great educator in every classroom that is proud to work in one of our 11 Jewish ECE centers or preschools partners. (Check out the great reporting right now that CPR is doing on the Workforce behind the Workforce about the challenges in ECE. See below in Worth Reading and Sharing for all the episodes).
As there continues to be an increasing need for qualified early childhood educators, we believe that the Efshar partner schools are a great testing ground for innovative solutions and we have the attention of great partners, including potential funders that are interested in supporting us. It's incredible to think that together, we serve almost 1000 children, 200 educators, 850 families and 25 school leaders, all from diverse backgrounds in our schools, making us one of the largest ECE communities in Colorado.
We are sending out a survey to get information from our ECE educators to help inform our funding strategy to address the common need for a strong, qualified workforce.
We will also be seeking your feedback as leaders and key partners. As a thank you, we will be doing one $50 gift card and two $25 Amazon gift card drawings for teachers that participate. We’d love you to encourage participation and will incentive you to get your teachers to help… more to come on that! We look forward to sharing this information with you. During our mid-year meetings, we will talk more about how you can participate in this exciting work ahead.
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Caron Blanke serves as a coach/consultant for the Efshar Project, specializing in ECE leadership, lay/parent partnership, and school culture. Caron also serves as an organizational consultant for local and national non-profits, where she strives to illuminate possibilities for individuals, teams and their organizations to help them reach their full potential. Through coaching and group facilitation, Caron's focus is on supporting the growth of organizational systems, lay-professional partnerships, leadership development and culture change. Caron has been on the faculty of the Sheva Center at JCC Association and a coach/consultant for the Efshar Project for the last four and a half years. For nearly 20 years prior, Caron worked in various JCCs throughout the country, most recently, as the Chief Program Officer at the Robert E. Loup Jewish Community Center in Denver. Caron has presented and led workshops at national conferences for lay and professional leadership. Caron holds double Master’s Degrees in Social Work and Jewish Non-Profit Leadership from the University of Southern California and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. She lives in Denver with her husband and three children.
