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Associated Press
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Fred Rogers Productions, PNC Foundation Extend Partnership for Alma's Way, Be My Neighbor Day and More
Originally published by Fred Rogers Productions PITTSBURGH, June 27, 2025 /3BL/ - Fred Rogers Productions has extended its partnership with the PNC Foundation. Through PNC Grow Up Great®, the PNC Foundation has awarded a $1.4 million grant to support Alma's Way, the hit series on PBS KIDS. The grant will also support community events inspired by the series and ongoing Fred Rogers Productions initiatives such as Be My Neighbor Day. PNC Grow Up Great® is a multi-year, bilingual early childhood education initiative that helps children from birth through age 5 develop a love of learning that lasts a lifetime, which aligns with the Fred Rogers Productions mission and its series' learning goals. PNC's support of Fred Rogers Productions' award-winning programming and events are aimed at helping to meet the needs of children and families where they are, a mission shared by both companies. 'We are so pleased to continue our partnership with the PNC Foundation, a valued supporter of educational and arts programs,' said Paul Siefken, president and CEO, Fred Rogers Productions. 'Their sponsorship of our programming and outreach initiatives enables us to continue providing valuable content and hands-on experiences for children and families in their neighborhoods nationwide.' The grant supports a range of onscreen content and outreach programs with educational and pro-social themes, including 49 Be My Neighbor Day events, the successful, longstanding community-based initiative inspired by Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, plus four Alma's Way community events, and more. 'Fred Rogers Productions has been a terrific collaborator from the earliest days of PNC Grow Up Great, creating quality programming that encourages young children to discover, learn and grow,' said Sally McCrady, chair and president of the PNC Foundation. 'Be My Neighbor Days is one of my favorite initiatives across PNC's markets, helping families think about how they can be great neighbors and the importance of keeping kindness in mind. We're excited to see the Alma's Way Explore Your City events take shape.' The PNC Foundation will be recognized on broadcast and across digital for its generous contribution to make new Alma's Way episodes possible. Alma's Way focuses on core messages and learning goals to encourage children as they develop problem-solving, resilience, empathy, and other life skills. The series follows 6- year-old Alma Rivera, a proud, confident Puerto Rican girl who lives in the Bronx with her family among a diverse group of close-knit friends and community members. In every episode, Alma models self-awareness, responsible decision-making and empathy, while encouraging kids to develop critical thinking skills and value their own ideas and questions. The series, which premiered in 2021, is created by Sonia Manzano ('Maria' on Sesame Street) and produced by Fred Rogers Productions in association with Pipeline Studios (Elinor Wonders Why). Ellen Doherty and Manzano are executive producers. Jorge Aguirre (Goldie & Bear) is head writer and co-executive producer. Additional co-executive producers are Luis Lopez and Juan Lopez. Supervising Producer for Fred Rogers Productions is Olubunmi Mia Olufemi. Be My Neighbor Day, the signature community outreach initiative for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood spinoff Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, has attracted several hundred thousand in-person attendees nationwide since the program started in 2014. There have been more than 126,000 resources shared with participants, and attendees have helped create and assemble over 90,000 'giveback' items, such as health and first aid kits and thank you cards, for their communities. More than 30,000 items, such as sweaters and mittens, have also been collected for donation to the participating locales. About the PNC Foundation The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group Inc.(NYSE:PNC) actively supports organizations that provide services for the benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The Foundation focuses its philanthropic mission on early childhood education and community and economic development, which includes the arts and culture. Through PNC Grow Up Great®, its signature cause that began in 2004, PNC has created a bilingual $500 million, multi-year initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life. For more information, visit About Fred Rogers Productions Fred Rogers Productions was founded by Fred Rogers in 1971 as the non-profit producer of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for PBS. In the years that followed, it created hundreds of episodes of this much-loved program and extended Fred's values and approach to other efforts in promoting children's social, emotional, and behavioral health while supporting parents, caregivers, teachers, and other professionals in their work with children. Fred Rogers Productions continues to build on Fred's legacy in innovative ways through a wide variety of media and engages new generations of children and families with his timeless wisdom. The company's highly rated children's series, including Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Peg + Cat, Odd Squad, and Through the Woods, have earned 31 Emmy® Awards among other important honors. The company's latest series are Donkey Hodie, the innovative puppet series inspired by characters from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and Alma's Way, an animated series created by Sonia Manzano. Fred Rogers Productions strives to inspire a lifelong enthusiasm for learning through its series as well as efforts beyond broadcast including games and interactive offerings, community engagement activities, and much more. For more information, visit or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. # # # Press contacts: Grand Communications (for Fred Rogers Productions) Alison Grand 212-584-1133; [email protected] Laura Liebeck 845-440-7974; [email protected] Angie Carducci (for PNC) 412-762-9186; [email protected]
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
New playground finished at local preschool
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Pre-schoolers who go to Alta Care Group's McCartney Learning Center will have a new place to play come warmer weather. Alta and PNC officials, along with some of the preschoolers, cut the ribbon Wednesday morning on a new playground. It was paid for by a $75,000 grant from PNC Foundation. Alta teamed up with PNC and Meyer Design to create the outdoor play area. The design plans included safe, stimulating surroundings with a nature-filled aesthetic that encourages creative play. The playground also features a reading nook, a stage and a wooden arch bridge. 'To have this playground for the kids, t be outside, help with their physical well-being, social well-being, mental health and having a recreational place to play at their preschool,' Alta Care Incoming CEO Vince Paolucci said. The project is part of PNC Foundation's 20-year anniversary of PNC Grow Up Great, placing a special focus on outdoor play and learning. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press
12-02-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
With PNC Foundation Grant, TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health Will Provide More Personalized Support To Help Parents Build Children's Healthy Brains
CHICAGO, February 11, 2025 /3BL/ - The PNC Foundation and University of Chicago's TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health announced a new phase of their long-standing partnership. Since 2014, PNC, through its early childhood education initiative, PNC Grow Up Great®, has supported the TMW Center's efforts to empower parents and caregivers in their important role as brain architects. Through individual interventions, group learning programs, free online resources and community partnerships, the TMW Center has provided more than 12,000 parents and caregivers with the science that proves they can build children's brains through talk and interaction – along with simple strategies, known as 'the 3Ts,' (Tune In, Talk More, Take Turns) to put that science into practice every day. Beginning in 2025, thanks to a $2.5 million grant from the PNC Foundation the TMW Center will pilot a new approach to bringing the 3Ts and the transformative, brain-building power of nurturing interactions to even more families. Using a wearable technology on children that allows parents to measure and understand their child's language environment, this new approach to education and community building will allow parents to receive personalized guidance and real-time insights they can act on immediately. Importantly, the technology is designed with user privacy as a central tenet and has built-in measures to protect child and family identity and privacy. In addition to real-time data, parents will have access to a corresponding app that includes a library of on-demand, evidence-based educational content created by the experts at the TMW Center to help them understand their child's developmental trajectory and the crucial role parents play as brain architects. This technology-assisted approach to supporting parents is the result of more than a decade of rigorous research, program development and evaluation, technology creation and innovation at the TMW Center. It also represents an important evolution of the Let's Talk group program that has been implemented in 10 communities across the country in recent years. 'Thanks to generous support from the PNC Foundation, we have been able to offer our Let's Talk educational group program to more than 450 parents,' said TMW Center Co-Director Dana Suskind. 'In the process, we have evaluated and fine-tuned our curricula and are thrilled to now offer this proven program in a more scalable, flexible and personalized format that allows parents to access data and information that is tailored to their child any time of day.' Recognizing that community has a more powerful role than ever in ensuring parents feel supported, this program will be piloted in partnership with select Head Start centers as part of their family engagement programming. Small groups of parents from each center will be given opportunities to learn, reflect and share with one another in person and online. 'Through our longtime partnership with the TMW Center, we've been thrilled to support them in bringing innovative resources to parents and caregivers around the country,' said Sally McCrady, chair and president, PNC Foundation. 'This latest evolution of the Let's Talk program draws on the power of community to create another novel approach to engaging and empowering families of young children in building the language and cognitive skills that last a lifetime.' Equipped with insights and learnings from this three-year pilot program, the TMW Center plans to make its technology available to parents across the country through a wide variety of channels and partnerships. The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC), actively supports organizations that provide services for the benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The Foundation focuses its philanthropic mission on early childhood education and community and economic development, which includes the arts and culture. Through PNC Grow Up Great®, its signature cause that began in 2004, PNC has created a bilingual $500 million, multi-year initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life. For more information, visit The TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, an interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Chicago, develops, tests, and disseminates evidence-based, parent- and caregiver-directed interventions that promote children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional development. To be effective, the organization uses feedback cycles to improve programs and inform scaling. With science driving its efforts, the TMW Center seeks to advance a public health approach to early learning: focus on prevention, rather than remediation, place parents and caregivers at the center of their child's education, embed proven practices into existing education and health systems, use research to drive innovation and impact at scale. A joint venture between University of Chicago's Biological Sciences and Social Sciences Divisions, the TMW Center is led by Dana Suskind, MD and Professor John List. Learn more at PNC THE TMW CENTER Liz Sablich (630) 915-7129 [email protected]
