4.0- During These Times

Brighter Fun creates fun and meaningful social-emotional tools for families and children. In response to COVID-19, they provided 120 free copies of Animal Chat- a card game designed for families to talk about their feelings . Listen to founders Brad and Betsy talk about the challenges many families face during COVID and their process in developing Animal Chat.

Dominion Literacy is partnering with community organizations and providing resource packs (playdoh, paperbacks, and paper products) to families in Dekalb County, Georgia. Listen to founder and 4.0 alum Dr. LaTasha Adams talk about the impact of literacy on young children and the value of coalition building right now.

This spring, Empower Community High School is providing funds for immediate needs (food, water, warmth, rest, safety, and shelter) and piloting innovative remote learning opportunities to the families they serve. Listen to co-founder Wisdom Amouzou and 9th grader Cielo talk about the first year of Empower and it's two-step response to COVID-19.

In response to COVID-19 and the acute shortage of PPE for medical workers on the front lines, Dent is empowering (and paying!) Baltimore high school students to manufacture masks and face shields in their homes. Listen to CEO (and 4.0 Tiny Alum!) Rajan Patel tell us more about this complicated process, the history of Dent, and what this all means for the future of their program.

For episode 5, we talked to CEO and current Tiny fellow, Tatiana Feldman about screen time, culturally relevant content, and launching Circletime in the midst of a global pandemic. Through the spring and COVID-19-related school shutdowns, Circletime provided its virtual live classes free to families to support parents in engaging their children in play-based learning opportunities.