Ensuring that children from birth to six receive what they need to succeed in school and in life: that’s the vision of Success By 6 at United Way of the Lowcountry. An active participant in the Beaufort County Early Childhood Coalition, Success By 6 is proud of the traveling Community Preschool Bus. Loaded with educational materials and professional educators, it visits sites at Sandalwood Terrace on Hilton Head Island, Bluffton House in Bluffton, the Marshwood and Yemassee Heights housing areas in northern Beaufort, Mt. Carmel Church in Dale, and the DSS parking last year.

Children receive learning materials and two books to add to their home library at each visit to the Traveling Preschool Bus.  Sandalwood Terrace and Bluffton House provide vacant apartments for parenting and pre-school activities.  Parents complete information sheets when their children boarde the bus, and follow-up postcards are mailed to notify them of a Preschool Bus return visits.

Return visits are one indicator used to judge the success of the program; several families visited the bus multiple times. In addition to early education services, professionals on the Preschool Bus provided referrals to EOC and DSS to ensure that families were receiving needed services.

“Play and Learn Together” is a best practice designed by the South Carolina Department of Education’s Good Start Grow Smart Task Force, and the Success By 6 Early Childhood Coalition Work Group employs a curriculum to” Train-the-Trainer,” making the program available to service providers throughout the community.

The curriculum teaches play and other techniques that encourage developmental growth in pre-school children. The PASO program, a prenatal care program targeting young Hispanic women, shares information with expectant mothers by distributing parenting education materials and incorporating the “Play and Learn” concept in their pre-natal classes.

With a focus on health and wellness as a component of school readiness, DHEC funds “Families Eating Smart and Moving More,” “Color Me Healthy,” and “Safe in the Sun” programs. Corresponding workshops are provided for pre-k teachers. The Beaufort County School District provides funding of healthy snacks for pre-kindergarten student. Printed materials for the health and wellness programs are available to parents visiting the Preschool Bus.