The Kronkosky Charitable Foundation is pleased to report on its year ended December 31, 2007. The Foundation serves residents of Bandera, Bexar, Comal, and Kendall counties in Texas by awarding grants across the wide range of charitable purposes summarized in the Foundation's Program Guidelines. During 2007, 131 grants totaling $14.9 million were approved for 110 non-profit organizations covering all four counties in the service area of the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation.  These grants are made possible by the remarkable generosity of the Kronkoskys. Our communities are fortunate to benefit from the dedicated work done by thousands of caring staff and volunteers who carry out the missions of the many non-profit agencies that serve our communities in so many areas of need. The organizations we fund are valued partners in the work of the Foundation.

The Precious Minds, New Connections Initiative continues to be a major thrust of the Foundation. The objective of the Precious Minds, New Connections Initiative is to impact, in a positive way, the life of every child born in our service area. We want to help parents and other caregivers of young children become knowledgeable about the critical development of their children in their first three years of life and provide opportunities for parents to be more actively engaged in their children’s early development.

The Foundation funded 24 parenting education programs during 2007 with funding of about $3.5 million. See the Precious Minds, New Connections section of this Website for more information on this important initiative of the Foundation.

In addition to direct funding, the Foundation sponsors training for parent educators related to the approved curricula in use and training designed to expand their knowledge of early childhood issues and expose them to local services and amenities available to parents.

During 2007, regular meetings of the program managers from each of the participating agencies were initiated to improve coordination and discuss initiative priorities. The Foundation also maintains a PMNC web-based database software system available to all PMNC grantees. In addition to the reports and information used by the programs, the data extracted from the database is being used to streamline reporting to the Foundation and to simplify continuation funding applications.

The Precious Minds, New Connections Initiative will include grant making in the area of parenting education as well as funding other programs within the community that promote early brain development of infants and toddlers. We suggest that non-profit agencies active in every program area of the Foundation consider how their work affects early childhood development. We anticipate funding early childhood programs in museums, parks, libraries and other areas. We hope this initiative will help put our service area on the leading edge of developing child-centered communities.