The PNC Foundation and Sesame Workshop have announced a four-year, $6.2 million initiative aimed at advancing racial justice through early childhood education.

As part of Sesame Workshop's Coming Together initiative, the collaboration will work to develop educational resources in English and Spanish that support the development of cognitive skills in a racial justice context. To be made available across the PNC footprint, the resources will include digital and print story and activity books, videos, games, and tools designed to foster social-emotional skills such as empathy, kindness, fairness, cooperation, and conflict resolution. The initiative also will work to further racial literacy by encouraging open, honest conversations in school and at home that build self-identity, develop race awareness, support understanding and respect for differences, promote age-appropriate ways to create a fairer preschool community, and celebrate the idea that children can help imagine a world without racial injustice through their curiosity, kindness, and sense of fairness.

The initiative builds on the organizations' earlier collaboration on the Grow Up Great initiative, a $500 million bilingual early education effort launched in 2004.

"Amid the racial justice movement, both Sesame Workshop and PNC felt a responsibility to do more to effect change in ways that we can. PNC announced a $1 billion commitment to help end systemic racism and support the economic empowerment of Black Americans and low- and moderate-income communities, and Sesame Workshop is directly addressing and prioritizing racial justice through new content and programming," said PNC Foundation chair and president Sally McCrady. "We're building on our successful collaboration to advance our shared commitment. The combination of our collective strengths will yield a strategic, informed approach to help children develop the skills to imagine, and ultimately build, a more equitable future."

(Photo credit: Sesame Workshop)