For over 36 years, the Soho Center has planned and implemented a variety of innovative, quality child care, early childhood, and school-age related programs and services utilizing a variety of modalities to promote optimal child development and education. 

And we have focussed on the development of innovative strategies that find and affect family child care providers - the people who care for the largest percentage of America's children in child care. 

Current Activities
| Financials  | Grants  |  Corporate Support  |  Past Activities | Donate Online!

• NATIONAL  CHILDREN'S LITERACY INFORMATION Project - A national effort to develop materials that directly enhance children's literacy and school success with a primary focus on parents and child care providers.  Materials currently being developed include two highly-produce NATIONAL CHILDREN'S LITERACY VIDEOS (to be given away free to 5,000 public libraries and child care groups nationwide) and an extensive NATIONAL CHILDREN'S LITERACY WEB SITE with hundreds of children's literacy resources and articles for use by parents, child care providers, and agencies.  Click HERE for more information on the NCLI.
  
  
  
• Virginia Health Information Project - Jerry Kilgore, former Virginia Attorney General selected the Soho Center to develop this innovative state-wide initiative to bring important health and nutrition information to citizens of the Commonwealth.  Current  Attorney General, Bob McDonnell, continues to support this unique project. For more information, Click Here.
  
  

• REACH Initiative - The Soho Center works to improve child care for large numbers of children in communities across America by piloting a variety of innovative and cost-effective outreach, networking, and training strategies - including our Children's Nutrition PSAs, our well-reviewed Business of Family Child Care Video, and our Child/2000 National Child Care Resource Directory

 
• Soho/USDA Food Program Support Project - The Soho Center helps to nationally publicize the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), a federal entitlement program which is part of the National School Lunch Act.  Examples include our four highly-produced 0:30 second television Children's Nutrition/Outreach PSAs featuring Linda Ronstadt singing Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You and engaging kids and providers.  The CACFP includes nutrition education and reimbursements to participating family day care providers for the healthy meals and snacks they serve children in their care. Studies have linked participation in the CACFP with higher quality child care. 

 
• Child Care Training - The Soho Center promotes on-going professional development and training for family day care providers on child care-related topics.  The Soho Center develops quality training materials (long-form Videos, Newsletters, and Directories) to improve the quality of child care and after-school care and to promote school readiness and school success. The Soho Center's training efforts provide information on child development, children's health and safety, nutrition, literacy, and learning activities.

 
• Free Child Care-Related Support Services - The Soho Center distributes free brochures on children's injury prevention, discipline and limit-setting, nutrition, age-appropriate learning activities, children's literacy, and health. The Soho Center distributes free  boxes of children's clothing to low income family day care providers and families.  The Soho Center provides free business advice and information about child care codes, child care associations, and child care-related agencies and organizations.  The Soho Center gives away free copies of its family day care-related video to hundreds of public libraries, child care associations, and child-care related agencies.  The Soho Center gives away thousands of free copies of its training materials to child care-related organizations which work with family day care providers.

 
• Child Care Resource Library - The Soho Center maintains a collection of books on parent education, child care, early childhood education, and elementary education along with a model library of children's books for pre-school and school-age children.

 
• Operation of a Model School - The Soho Center develops, tests, and demonstrates a model curriculum for a high quality early education/elementary school program for the community.  The program includes innovative integration of arts, music, dance, and other related educational activities into a curriculum of traditional academic subjects.

 
• Literacy Training and Free Children's Books - The Soho Center promotes children's literacy, school readiness, and on-going school success.  The Soho Center offers literacy information to family day care providers as well as a free "starter" home library of quality children's books.

 

Financial Summary
Current Activities  | Grants  | Corporate Support  |  Past Activities | Donate Online!

For a current financial summary of the Soho Center's operations, please consider looking us up in GuideStar - a service of Philanthropic Research, Inc.  They are a  non-profit organization that provides a national listing of non-profits that includes each organization's objectives, Board of Directors, goals and accomplishments, and recent 990 financial information as filed with the IRS.

Once you log onto GuideStar, enter "Soho" in the Charity Search box at the top and click FIND.  That should get you a list of non-profits with us near the top. Then just click on "Soho Center" and you will get a full financial summary and other information from our Federal Form 990. Click Here to go to GuideStar
 

• $51,000 Grant from the Office of the Virginia Attorney General in partial support of the Soho Center's new Virginia Health Information Project  (Click  for information on the VHIP)
  
  

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• $97,500 Grant from the UPS Foundation and $10,000 Grant from Reed Elsevier in support of the Soho Center's new NATIONAL CHILDREN'S LITERACY INFORMATION Project -  including our up-coming  CHILDREN'S LITERACY VIDEOS (to be given away free to 5,000 public libraries and child care groups nationwide) and an extensive CHILDREN'S LITERACY WEB SITE, and related activities. (Click  for information on the NCLI)



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• $26,000 grant from Hewlett-Packard to upgrade the Soho Center's office equipment - including 4 new Vectra PCs, four high-resolution 21" graphics monitors, four tape backup systems, four printers, specialized video graphics cards, digital camera, color scanner and more - all in support of our up-coming NATIONAL CHILDREN'S LITERACY INFORMATION Project and related activities. (Click  for information on the NCLI)



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• $804,000 Grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for the Soho Center's REACH Initiative to develop integrated rural development and child care strategies with providers and policy-makers as well as state and national child care-related organizations. Includes sophisticated media outreach, print support, computerized provider databases, and 1-800-A1-KIDS-1 information number. (Click  for more on the Soho Center's REACH Initiative) 



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• $175,000 Grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for the Soho Center's VIDEO Project for a sophisticated, media-based campaign (including television commercials and print) to increase participation in the USDA Food Program 



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• $100,000 National Pilot Grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in support of the Soho Center's Comprehensive Child Care Initiative (CCCI) - an integral, "one-stop-shopping" appproach to enhancing family day care including nutrition education, food reimbursements, child care training, children's literacy, injury prevention, child care referrals, and related support services.



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• 55 separate People Who Read Achieve grants from Southland/7-Eleven Corporation to allow the Soho Center to purchase tens of thousands of dollars of quality children's books and literacy materials for hundreds of Virginia family day care providers. Books are sent free by the Soho Center to qualifying providers. (Click  for more on our Family Child Care Literacy Project.)

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• $30,000 Innovation Grant from the Center on Rural Development (CORD). The Soho Center was the only child-related project in the State funded by CORD. 



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• 13 Injury Prevention Grants from the Virginia Department of Health, Division of Emergency Services to allow the Soho Center to distribute free home safety devices (fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, safety gates, etc.) to providers. 



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• $60,000 in Planning and Technical Assistance, Quality Enhancement, and Planning grants from Virginia Council to increase the quality and availability of child care including region-wide training for family day care providers. 



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• Created a Model Nursery School/Kindergarten/Early Education Center serving surrounding counties.   (Click  for more on our innovative FIRST/CLASS Program.)  



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• Received Certificate of Special Recognition from the Virginia Council on Coordinating Prevention for the Soho Center's "Innovative efforts in improving and expanding child care in rural areas." 



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• Implemented Comprehensive Child Care Initiative (CCCI) to provide Voluntary Registration, USDA Food Program, direct training, outreach, and related services to family day care providers in 41 counties in Virginia (until start of our state-wide W.K. Kellogg Foundation-funded REACH Initiative in July 1995). The CCCI enhanced family day care for thousands of children across Virginia. 



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Past and Present Corporate Support (Now with Links!)
Current Activities | Financials | Grants | Support | Past Activities | Donate Online

Over the past 5 years, the Soho Center has enjoyed significant business support, including generous in-kind and direct support from these regional and national companies.(You can click on underlined companies to go to their main web pages.)
 

The Soho Center encourages you to consider supporting our efforts on behalf of children, literacy, nutrition, and the child care profession as you plan your charitable giving.

* N O T E :  If you are a Virginia corporation, partnership, or any business that pays Virginia Income tax, your donation may be eligible for an extra 45% Virginia Income Tax Credit.  Please click here or call us at 540-923-5012 for information!
 

Prior to moving the Soho Center's operations to Virginia in 1989, Ms. Beker's (Soho Center's Founder) activities included -

• Founding the Soho Center, a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation. The Soho Center's core program, The Children's Energy Center, was the largest nursery/early childhood school in Manhattan. It included four locations, a staff of 20 to 25 professionals, and an annual budget of $650,000. The three school locations were licensed as day care centers. 

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• Soho Center's New York school was the site for a two year study by researchers from Columbia Teachers College of children's story-telling and creative development which resulted in a book by Brian Sutton-Smith. 

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• Parents magazine featured the Soho Center in a nationally distributed film-strip as a model family and community center. 

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• Established the United Nations Child Care Centre. 

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• Working with four universities and colleges (New York University, LaGuardia College, Pace University, and Hunter College) to train teachers from their Child Development, Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, Arts Education, and Psychology Departments. 

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• Co-founding the Downtown Schools Association of private and public elementary schools, day care centers, and nursery schools in Manhattan. 

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• Co-founding the Association For Parent Education made up of 35 member agencies throughout the greater New York/New Jersey area. 

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• Consulting in the educational toy field (including consultant to author Kent Burtt, Smart Toys, to Johnson & Johnson on prototypes for infant/toddler toys, and to the Toy Manufacturers of America for field-testing of pre-school toys). 

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• Member of Board of Advisors of the Early Childhood Resource and Information Center (a special branch of the New York Public Library). 

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• Organizing after-school programs (gymnastics, pre-ballet, music, Suzuki violin, puppet-making, etc.) for nursery- and elementary school-aged children. 

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• Organizing year-round parent seminars and discussion groups. 

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• Working with the New York State Department of Education on preliminary plans for a Resource & Referral Service on parent education programs.