LifeWays North America has been privileged for twelve years to offer training, courses, workshops and consulting to:

      *    individual parents, teachers, and caregivers seeking balance and joy

• organizations and schools willing to grapple with what is rightful for young children who must spend long hours of the day or week away from their homes.

Please peruse the website to learn more about our training locations and the

Representative early childhood centers and homes we support through consulting, training and collegial warmth. Also listed are a number of our LifeWays graduates' or students' programs, along with others who feel aligned with our ideals.

We are, for the first time, sending out an ANNUAL APPEAL. Will you help us with two major areas of concern:  

1). Student Tuition Support.

Two stellar LifeWays childcare directors were interviewed by the Let's Move team of researchers, a government effort to stop obesity in early childhood. One of the directors was then highlighted on an on-line call-in show because the research team was so impressed by her approach to food, to technology and to outside play.

Here is the backfire!!  As a result of the government research, new expectations are being put into place requiring childcare centers to have a prescribed outdoor play curriculum, a time-consuming detailed written record of the food intake of each child, and, in some cases, a plan for how centers will insure that limited media viewing will be interactive. When a Young Star representative (the rating system for many states' early childhood programs) visited a premiere LifeWays Center recently, the center was awarded no points for its outdoor program, food program or zero screen time policy! Their children play outside in a forest several hours a day, and their food is all organic, much of it grown by them! And, by the way, they have never had an obese child. But they do not use the materials-driven measurement system that Young Star requires! The representative acknowledged that it was unfortunate that such an outstanding and progressive center (the best in the state according to some) could not receive the points, but noted she could do nothing about it. Their measurements are set and inflexible. There is, at this time, no "equivalency" allowance. Please help us address this insanity!

On a happier note, we are delighted that the LifeWays training has been acknowledged in such a way that Ashland University in Ohio offers graduate credits to LifeWays students who enroll in both programs. We are also pleased that our graduates are thriving in their work places. We just received word of one graduate who is going to work for childcare center in a university in Virginia which accepted her training in lieu of their typical requirements.

With the help of Susan Silverio, Director of the Northeast LifeWays training, we have just submitted our application to the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America to become an approved Child Care/Birth-to-Three Training for their organization.   We started with one of our training sites and will follow suit with our other sites. We are optimistic that we will receive approval, which will support our graduates who choose to work in WECAN-membered organizations or schools.

In that vein, it is with joy that we are in the process of welcoming two Waldorf Schools as Representative sites for LifeWays childcare. One Midwest school has a small childcare program in one wing of the school, and the other East Coast school has a beautiful complex for their early childhood center just down the road from the school proper. As more schools bring children two years old and under into their programs, we are hopeful that we can serve as a consulting organization for them. We all want to serve as models of health for these, our youngest and most vulnerable, children. By helping the schools, we feel we are supporting WECAN and the Association of Waldorf Schools in their devoted efforts to support families in these times.

Thank you for taking the time to read our appeal. We are grateful to be part of a world effort to stay awake, to be mindful, to joyfully embrace moments of goodness, to see beauty, and to radically seek truth. Thank you for participating! You can Donate to LifeWays online via Paypal and credit cards, or you are welcome to print out the information below (use ControlP on your computer) and send it to our home office in Oklahoma.

Yours Sincerely,

Cynthia Aldinger,

Founder and Director

Yes, I want to be a Friend of LifeWays to protect childhood, deepen family life and change childcare in North America!     My tax-deductible donation* is enclosed for:

___$35 ___$45 ___$75 ___$100 _____other

Donations help to provide tuition support for students otherwise not able to attend and to provide outreach to the greater public . LifeWays is known for its generous way of working with sincerely committed students.   Please help us continue to help them!

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Mail to: LifeWays North America, 403 Piney Oak Drive, Norman, OK 73072