Mountain Area Child and Family Center adopts new name

Press release

From Verner:

Mountain Area Child and Family Center, a nonprofit, early care and education center will soon adopt a new organizational name that reflects their mission and embraces their organization’s growth. On Sunday, March 16 the nonprofit will celebrate this transition with their founders, donors, community partners and families. The organization has chosen Verner as their new organizational name to pay homage to the vision of one of their primary founders, Margaret O. “Danny” Verner.

The nonprofit has served Buncombe County with high quality, affordable care and education for children birth to five years old since 2001. The center was born out of Danny Verner’s vision to provide a high quality, affordable early learning program that was available to all children and families in the community. With support from community members, The Mountain Area Child and Family Center was created to serve children in the Swannanoa Valley, but quickly grew to be a resource to children, families and early learning professionals in our community and beyond.

In the past thirteen years, the organization has supported thousands of children and their families with high quality early care and education and family services. During this time, the nonprofit has expanded with a second location in Candler, NC and a home-based program that serves low income pregnant women and children 0-3. They have developed model programs including Mothers on the Move (MOMs), which supports families that want to continue their education and Rainbow In My Tummy®, a nutrition program that works to improve the quality of food served to young children. Over the past five years, Rainbow In My Tummy® has seen such success that 12 additional centers in Buncombe County have the program ensuring more than 1,000 children are eating nutrient rich meals every day. Their strong family engagement and teacher mentoring programs provide families, educators and other early care and education centers with the tools they need to communicate with children and families effectively.

With this steady growth, the nonprofit is no longer just serving the Swannanoa Valley or even the “mountain area.” Their new name reflects their founder’s complete vision, not just their geographic locations. Their programs are reaching beyond Buncombe County and are even crossing state lines. Because of this expanded impact, the Board of Directors and staff embarked on a journey in January 2012 to find a name and visual identity that would reflect their impact on the community.

By choosing Verner as their new organization name, Danny’s vision and commitment to young children can be celebrated every day. The byline, a “Center for Early Learning” represents that they are much more than a place and that children, families and our community are at the center of what they do. The tagline “A Community Where Children and Families Thrive’ represents their dream to foster a community among staff, with families and beyond their four walls that allows children and families to succeed.

Most importantly, the nonprofit wants the community to know that while their name is changing who they are, what they do and how they do it will not change. Their mission statement will remain, “Verner is an early learning program of distinction where young children thrive, families flourish and early learning professionals excel.” The organization invite you to learn more about their programs by visiting their new website: www.vernerearlylearning.org .