Cornerstone Family Ministries Inc

Children's early learning center & lab school (the rosa valdez early learning center & lab school) - majority of the children at the center live at or below the poverty level. The center has a standard for high quality care, low teacher-to-child ratios, certified staff, and an enriched learning environment. In addition to a literacy based christian curriculum, the center provides developmental assessments, therapeutic services, behavioral counseling, family support, and lots of love and care for the children and families who are part of the rosa family. Although the center's goal is to prepare children for future academic success, it also strives to provide safe childcare so that parents and caregivers can work or go to school to move their family out of poverty. There are two locations: one is located at oak grove united methodist church and the other is our original located in old west tampa. The organization provided 98 child care scholarships for the children served and sponsored 11 lab school students on the teach scholarship program.

The cornerstone children's nutrition education - the cornerstone children's nutrition connection provides nutrition, education, and obesity prevention awareness to low income children and their families, as well as program development and training around nutrition education and nutritious menu planning for the staff of the 150+ centers sponsored by cornerstone through its sponsorship of the child care food program where these children attend for early childhood programming. Our nutritionist and technical assistance coaching staff provide coaching and training sessions to centers to help them improve quality and to ensure that nutritious food was served to children who really need it in addition, cornerstone launched in 2018 a community garden to address the need for community education and access to fresh fruits and vegetables in one of tampa's known food desert areas known as ybor city. The garden is a place where children and their educators and families can learn about where food comes from, how it grows, how to take it home and prepare it, and how it fuels our bodies (the garden movement). This year throughout all our nutrition programs, we had 167 centers serving an average of 18,004 children participate under our sponsorship. 4,064,280 meals were served and 64% of the children served were food insecure.