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Our nation is facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. We all have a part to play in getting America moving again. The afterschool community, working with our partners in the schools, law enforcement, faith-based organizations and business and labor, is ready to do its part for moving our nation forward today and towards a better future for tomorrow.  It is important to talk to your contacts in state leadership and at state agencies now about how afterschool can be help, and how funds might roll out.  Be sure to relay that afterschool programs are a vital support to families and children today, and critical to the workforce of tomorrow.  For more talking points ideas check out the Afterschool & Economic Recovery Wiki and post questions, ideas and strategies around the bill and specific potential funding streams.

Tips:

• Mine the speeches and statements of your Mayor, legislature or Governor before you craft your letter or talking points.  Make sure you mirror their priorities in making the tie to afterschool supports.
• Convey the urgency of help needed for our nation today, and success tomorrow.  Afterschool provides a critical support to many families and communities. 
• Whenever possible, humanize the issue with anecdotes or examples.
• People rely on their afterschool programs – to keep their kids safe, to help them keep their jobs or be able to look for work, to give their kids a healthy snack or meal and provide critical learning support.  We should not feel bad about pressing for the need to give families and communities these supports.

Talking Points:

• We can help keep America’s workers employed, provide new jobs, help parents find work, and prepare our nation’s future workforce
• We need to support America’s struggling working families.  Families are relying even more on afterschool supports as they work to keep their jobs, take on more hours, or struggle to afford basic necessities for their children.  Parents with afterschool care are more productive at work, less stressed about the welfare of their children, and consequently, miss fewer days of work.  For low income children, programs are often a reliable source of nutritious snacks or a hot meal.
• Afterschool programs provide much-needed jobs for adults and young adults. In the U.S. (replace with your state) today, afterschool programs serve 8.4 million children (replace with figure for your state from America After 3PM), providing jobs for an estimated 650,000 adults (replace with 10% of kids served in your state, based on assumption of 1 adult for every 10 kids).  There is demand for afterschool programs to serve another 18.5 million children nationally—a potential of more than 1 million jobs for individuals with a wide variety of background and experience, from young adults to baby boomers.
• Afterschool programs provide the added value of investing in our future workforce.  Children in afterschool programs do better in school, are more likely to graduate and are exploring pathways to new careers.  Through hands-on learning, they are developing the critical thinking, leadership and problem solving skills that employers say are vital.  Investing in afterschool programs now is a down payment on tomorrow's workforce, and a successful economy.  As U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said, we need to “educate our way to a better economy.”

The Afterschool Alliance sent a letter to all Members of Congress to encourage them to vote for a final economic recovery package that would provide support to afterschool programs and to the families that depend on them.  You could use it as a guideline for your own letter to make the case for supporting afterschool efforts. 
 

Additionally, the Georgia Afterschool Investment Council and the Georgia School Age Care Association partnered to write a letter to Georgia's Governor Perdue to urge support of afterschool programs through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.  It's a great tool to use as a guide while writing your own letter to policy makers in your state about accessing economic recovery dollars for afterschool.  

Download NLC’s ARRA brief on afterschool.  It has information on what you can do to learn how your city can strengthen efforts to communicate the need for ARRA funds to be utilized for afterschool.   

Also See these Issue Briefs for more ideas: 
Afterschool Programs: A Wise Public Investment
Afterschool Programs Help Working Families
Afterschool Programs: Helping Kids Compete in Tomorrows Workforce