Precious Minds New Connections Initiative

This Initiative by the Foundation is unique in the foundation community. Its development is documented below:

The Foundation’s Precious Minds, New Connections Initiative was the result of considerable input from persons working in areas of child abuse, character development, alcoholism, the arts, teenage pregnancies and many other charitable areas established by the Kronkoskys. Their input came during numerous round table discussions and from site visit discussions related to grant proposals. Within the Foundation, Dr. Megan Kromer, Ph.D. provided the creative leadership that led to the Initiative. Foundation staff solicited views on root causes and preventative measures related to community issues in addition to current needs of area citizens. Lack of focus on nurturing early childhood development was often mentioned as a concern.

The Foundation also conducted extensive research into early childhood development. As part of the research effort, the Foundation sponsored a Precious Minds, New Connections Conference held in September 1999. Fifteen experts in the field were brought in as speakers for the Conference. The Conference focused on the findings of considerable research conducted nationally in relation to early childhood development with an emphasis on early brain development. More than 600 persons interested in children and families attended the conference. See Conference Agenda for more information regarding the conference.

The Conference accomplished three important things. First it raised the level of community understanding of the importance of a nurturing early childhood experience. Conference coverage by the San Antonio Express-News was a key factor in raising community awareness. The Conference also helped to recharge child advocates long working to help families and children. Lastly, it sealed the commitment of the Foundation to a long-term initiative…Precious Minds, New Connections (PMNC).

Following the Conference, a facilitated workshop was sponsored by the Foundation to obtain the input of 80 creative people working in diverse fields in our communities. The topic of this workshop was to answer the question …how can early childhood development be meaningfully improved in our communities? During that workshop, it was clear there was a consensus that broad based parenting education was needed in our communities if we were to affect the lives of children in a lasting way.