Charlottesville, Virginia's paper of record, the Daily Progress features Jeanna Beker and the Soho Center's upcoming 30th anniversary on the front page of its March 9, 2002 issue.          (Complete Text of Story Follows Below) Click on photo for full-size graphic   __________________________________________________________________ By KERI SCHWAB Daily Progress staff writer Photo: Ronna Gradus/Daily Progress   HAYWOOD — For 30 years, Jeanna Beker has devoted herself to improving children’s education by providing books and educational materials to day-care centers, Head Start programs and kindergarten teachers. The next 10, 20 and 30 years at the Soho Center should be no different. “I’m looking forward to the next decade,” Beker said, sitting in her Madison County home. “I love to do good things for children. I love to find smart, cost-effective and creative ways to help lots of kids.” The nonprofit Soho Center will celebrate its 30th birthday in April, and Beker, 50, will continue reaching out to Virginia children and those who teach and care for them. Since moving to Madison from Manhattan in 1989, the Soho Center, funded by grants and donations, has given away thousands of books and educational materials to promote reading. It has produced printed information and videos on how to run a safe and healthy day-care center, and Beker has created a demonstration model nursery school in a building next to her home, to show how every activity is an opportunity to read. Beker explains her passion for increasing literacy as something “close to my heart.” “If kids can come to school functioning at age-appropriate and desirable levels, the kids can build on that,” she said. “The Soho Center works to find ways to help kids enter school ready to read and succeed.” Beker founded the Soho Center in Manhattan in 1972. It was the largest early childhood program in the area, with four locations and 25 staff members. She and her husband, George, moved the center and their home to Madison County for a change of scenery and the chance to expand the program to help all Virginia children. “I asked myself, ‘What next project would I love to do?’ I decided promoting literacy in childcare settings of all types would please me enormously,” she said, sitting in her living room full of books. Helping Madison County children and living and learning in a rural area also fit into her goals. Beker has invited Head Start groups to her home, surrounded by wooded land, to run in the forest, listen to stories and play games. “They love the stories,” said Amy Dunnivan, whose Head Start class visited in December and went on a nature walk, played musical instruments and read holiday books. Improving child care in day-care settings is another of Beker’s goals. “I work very hard to find ways to improve the quality of child care because that’s where so many of the children are,” Beker said. “Many women have children and relatively quickly go back into jobs.”  State agencies regulate children’s health and safety in day-care facilities. Exposure to educational materials — and encouragement of curiosity — is not regulated. To help such facilities, the Soho Center produced three commercials promoting the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Program, which reimburses some food purchases made by child care workers, and a video on the business of family child care. She also has produced a resource booklet with lists of free services and other information for day-care centers.  The commercials ran in six states, and the videos and booklets also have been distributed in other states. The materials, George Beker said, are “cost-efficient, effective ways to put [information] in front of hundreds of thousands. We could do a training session for 10 people, or we could do a video for thousands … and that’s used over and over again.” Thinking of the possibilities to continue growing and helping more children, Beker’s eyes twinkle. “I love the idea of meeting unmet needs and helping large numbers of children.”

 

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