Moriarty was able to attend Tom Copeland's workshop on current trends in family child care at the NAEYC conference.

“Let Redleaf Send You to Anaheim!”

How many times have you come across a contest tagline similar to this and thought to yourself, “Why should I waste my time entering? I’ll never win.”

For one curious child care provider, though, the answer to that question turned out to be—why not?

“I came across the scholarship notice while reading Redleaf’s September e-newsletter,” recalls Mary Sharon Moriarty, a family child care provider from the Chicago area. “On a whim, I decided to enter the contest, never thinking I would actually be the winner!”

A few days later, Mary became the lucky recipient of the first annual Redleaf Press NAEYC Scholarship. The scholarship—which was announced in the September 2004 issue of the first issue of our new e-newsletter—covered all of Mary’s flight and hotel expenses as well as her registration fee for the 2004 NAEYC Annual Conference and Exhibit in Anaheim, California, November 10-13.

At first Mary had to balance her amazement with winning the scholarship with the complexities of planning a rapidly approaching trip with two young children at home. With a little help from her aunt and a friend, however, Mary was able to bring her two daughters, Brianna (5) and Olivia (18 months), to California with her.

Mary’s career in early childhood started five years ago when she started a small home-based child care business after the birth of her first daughter. Aside from her own children, she has also cared for a number of children ages 3 to 7 in that time. She currently has 2 children besides her own in her family child care.

A trained therapist, Mary has also worked as a special education teacher (LD/BD), with the chronically mentally ill in a day treatment program, and in adult outpatient programming for a community mental health facility.

Having never attended the NAEYC Annual Conference before, Mary found the experience to be an interesting—and invaluable—one. “Attending this conference only left me more convinced than ever that I will always want to be working in the early childhood profession, whether that is in some teaching or counseling capacity.”

While her family enjoyed some of Anaheim’s tourist attractions, Mary dove head-first into the diverse array of workshops at the conference including:

• Creating meaningful and engaging opportunities in your infant/toddler program

• Presenting literature by using multiple stimuli to engage all of the senses

• Sweet songs of yesterday: how to keep company with children in difficult times

• Understanding and working with social and relational aggression in preschoolers

• How to make gardening a valuable learning experience for young children

• Helping children deal with their angry feelings

• Creative and playful paths to literacy

Of all the workshops she attended, she was especially impressed with those on challenging behaviors and business issues in family child care—the latter of which was led by family child care business expert Tom Copeland, director of Redleaf National Institute.

“I always benefit from learning more of the business principles that Tom Copeland is so good at conveying to family child care providers,” Moriarty said. “His passion for what he does has stayed with me and motivates me to attend to these business details in a more lighthearted way.”

The trip wasn’t entirely all taking notes and running from workshop to workshop, though. In her free time, Mary was able to visit Disneyland with her children, aunt and friend, as well as spend some time enjoying California’s warm weather.

The California sun and the world’s most famous mouse aside, though, Mary found the whole NAEYC experience to be a source of inspiration for the work she has chosen to do.

The 2004 NAEYC Annual Conference and Expo was held at the Anaheim Convention Center.

“Overall, the conference was wonderful, and I came away feeling appreciated for the work I'm choosing to do at this point in my life,” she said. “The NAEYC conference offered me time to be around so many committed people who know what's really important.”

So, the next time entering a contest seems like a waste of time, you may want to think twice. A minute of your time could help change your life’s work.

Redleaf Press plans to offer a scholarship to the 2005 NAEYC Annual Conference and Exhibit in Washington, DC. Look for details in future editions of the Redleaf E-news.