Who We Are
In many ways, The Children's Movement of Florida evolved from the highly successful August 2008 reauthorization campaign for The Children’s Trust in Miami-Dade County.
In that election, conducted as the economy was collapsing, 85.4 percent of Miami-Dade's voters agreed to a modest but permanent increase in their property taxes. This tax now raises about $100 million annually for hundreds of early intervention and prevention programs that serve the county's children.
The reauthorization campaign was led by David Lawrence Jr., a nationally known journalist and former publisher of The Miami Herald. After retiring from The Herald in 1999, Lawrence devoted himself to children's issues, leading The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation and emerging as a national leader in the field.
The campaign's chief strategist was the internationally known Sergio Bendixen of Bendixen & Amandi, a public opinion research and communications consulting firm based in Coral Gables, Fla. In recent years, Bendixen also has emerged as a champion of early childhood issues, often working in close association with Lawrence.
Based on the success of the 2008 effort in Miami-Dade County and his decades of involvement in local and national political campaigns, Bendixen sensed that there might be significant citizen support for a statewide movement that focused specifically on children’s causes.
Continue to read the full story here...
Read about the Children’s Movement of Florida Pilot Project here...
Our Mission
The Children’s Movement of Florida believes that the well-being and education of our children in Florida must be the highest priority of government, business, non-profit institutions and families. The economic future of our state and the stability of the communities we live in depend on achieving this goal. The major objective of the citizen-led, non-partisan Children’s Movement of Florida is to inform the political, business and civic leaders, and the parents and people of this state, about this issue – and encourage them to make the well-being and education of our children our highest priority, including in the way we invest our public resources.
The Movement's Beginnings
Where it all began
"When you are dealing with children's issues, there is no partisanship."
– Roberto Martinez
We now know that – when made more fully aware of the state's shortcomings – an overwhelming majority of Floridians would enlist in a nonpartisan, statewide campaign to assign the state's highest priority to children's issues in general and early childhood development in particular.
That was the key finding of The Children's Project of Palm Beach and what initially began the powerful development and launch of The Children’s Movement of Florida. Learn more about our beginnings here...
The Statewide Launch
It was an audacious plan with an ambitious and compelling objective -- organize and conduct major "Milk Party" rallies in 17 Florida cities, all within four weeks, to demonstrate and coalesce support for the children of this state. And it worked. Spectacularly. Learn more about the Florida tour here...