Early Education Nonprofit Launches New Podcast Featuring Kristen Bell

Neighborhood Villages, a Boston-based nonprofit working to realize a future in which all families have access to affordable, high-quality early education and care, launched a new podcast, “No One is Coming to Save Us,” in partnership with Lemonada Media.

Listeners will join award-winning journalist Gloria Riviera and special correspondent Kristen Bell as they explore the issue of America’s childcare crisis and the people impacted by it. The first episode aired today. Neighborhood Villages is co-creator of the podcast along with Lemonada.

The podcast takes a deep dive into the childcare crisis, highlighting the Ellis Early Learning Center in Boston, a local partner center of Neighborhood Villages. Families, providers and early childhood educators from the center will share their stories and provide a firsthand look into early education. The four-part series will explore how lack of quality, affordable childcare creates an achievement gap that can last a child’s entire lifetime. It also dives into how the pandemic has revealed the deep flaws in our childcare system that continues to disproportionately affect lower income families.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown our need to address the child care crisis into high relief. Our current broken system is failing everyone — children, families and educators — and we can’t afford to wait any longer to fix it,” said Sarah Muncey, co-founder of Neighborhood Villages. Lauren Kennedy, also a co-founder of the organization, added, “the legacy of childcare in America makes it pretty clear that no one is coming to save us. It's on us to make change happen and we hope that the podcast empowers listeners to understand that, by lifting our collective voices and demanding better, we can save ourselves.”

“Ellis is proud to be a partner of Neighborhood Villages, which provides invaluable support to our teachers and families. When they approached us about being featured in ‘No One is Coming to Save Us,’ we were thrilled to be part of the project,” said Lauren Cook, CEO of Ellis Early Learning Center. “Finally, someone is telling the story of the child care crisis with those most impacted at its center: families and providers.”

Neighborhood Villages, founded in 2017 by Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, is a Boston-based systems-change nonprofit that advocates for early education and care policy reform and implements scalable solutions that address the biggest challenges facing providers and the families who rely on them. Neighborhood Villages is also part of the Common Start Coalition that has filed Massachusetts legislation (H.605 and S.362) that would establish a system of affordable, high-quality early education and child care for all Massachusetts families, over a five-year timeline. Click here for for more information.

Listen and learn more about the “No One Is Coming to Save Us” podcast here or subscribe to the podcast here.