Good News Friday!

Imagine!’s Dayspring department recently released its latest community activity calendar, for the months of September through December.

Daypsring’s community calendar activities introduce young children with developmental delays and disabilities and their families to places in our community that offer great activities and opportunities for children to meet their goals through fun and play. All activities encourage motor, sensory, social-emotional, cognitive, and speech-language development.

Why are Dayspring’s community calendar activities, along with the other services they provide, so important?

Studies show that the first few years of life of a child's development are crucial in setting the foundation for lifelong learning, behavior, and health outcomes. This is good not only for the child, but also for communities and organizations facing a limited amount of resources available for serving individuals with one or more developmental disabilities. Well-designed early childhood interventions have been found to generate a return to society ranging from $1.80 to $17.07 for each dollar spent on the program.

But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what a parent of a child who received services from Dayspring recently told us:

“Our daughter is a perfect example of how this program works. She entered with delayed speech and was extremely shy around other people and other children. Today she excels in her speech, has started preschool and plays and interacts great with other kids. I could never have imagined what a huge change we would see in her.

Both of the therapists that we worked with were exceptionally good. Janine Randol gave us a number of exercises and techniques to encourage our daughter to begin to use more words and develop her speech. Kate Hines, our OT always had fun games and activities to help our daughter break out of her shell. I can't say enough about the impact that these two women had in our life and our daughter's improvement from the time she entered the program until she aged out. In addition, our daughter regularly attended nearly all of the community activities and they were an incredible tool to encourage her social development. Sara and Pat were wonderful group leaders and really gave us support on a weekly basis as our daughter went through new stages and took on new challenges.

I truly credit Dayspring's therapists and community activities with her success and am very satisfied with our experience. Thank you!”

Congratulations to all of the Dayspring staff. You do vital work for our community, and the positive impact you have on the children you serve will last them a lifetime.

By the way – if you are looking for a way to support Dayspring’s community calendar activities, which are funded by donations from generous local organizations, then check out this Imagine! Foundation blog post about some Knights of Columbus Tootsie Roll Drives taking place in Boulder and Longmont over the next two weekends.