ACE MV, a nonprofit organization serving the education and workforce needs of Vineyard residents, announced it received a $50,000 grant from the West Chop Community Fund.
The grant program, now in its second year, will be used to expand ACE MV’s Early Childhood Education Cohort program to “support more students, increase community-building through cohort learning, and to develop a Brazilian Portuguese language cohort around a credit-bearing course required for licensure,” according to a release sent by the group.
The program prepares Vineyard residents to be licensed early childcare providers. The funding allows ACE MV and its partners to provide students with “tuition support, enrollment assistance, books, childcare, professional development seminars, and industry-specific training.”
“We are thrilled to be partnering again with Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, Cape Cod Community College, and other institutions to offer this second year of cohort learning for early educators on M.V.,” ACE MV executive director Alex Bullen Coutts is quoted. “With generous support from the West Chop Community Fund, this program enables critical connections between Island students, educators, and employers in order to best position all early-childhood educators to fill the many existing gaps in this growing and important field.”
Two new staff members and a Brazilian-Portuguese language cohort will be added as part of the expansion. “We are especially eager to welcome our first cohort of Brazilian Portuguese–speaking students,” Bullen Coutts said in the release, “who, with support from both our new Early Childhood Education Program coordinator, Deb Maher, and our new Portuguese language facilitator, Sayra Guimaraes, will enroll in coursework taught by a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, and will have access to a host of cultural and native-language community [support].”
Both English-speaking and Portuguese-speaking cohorts will begin the week of Sept. 4 with weekly meetings on Tuesday evenings at 6 pm, at the Martha’s Vineyard Community Services Early Childhood Center. New students interested in enrolling or learning more about the program can attend an information session at the center on Tuesday, August 22, from 6 to 8 pm, or email deb@acemv.org.
