StoryBus Sponsors

StoryBus was launched by the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation.

“I can’t think of anything more important to our future than literacy. Literacy is key to preventing children from failure. We now have a national mandate --- that all of our nation’s children be able to read by the end of third grade. The StoryBus will help develop that proficiency by providing a magical place for young children to experience language.”

Dolores Kohl Education Foundation

With the goal of enhancing children’s learning through the support of exemplary teaching, the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation launched in 1972 as a private international operating foundation. In the auspicious decades since, its innovative Teacher Center concept has evolved into the Foundation’s top-notch, first-of-their-kind programs of today: the Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards and the StoryBus.

Launched in 1985, the Kohl Children’s Museum and the Kohl International Teaching Awards served as national models for creative, interactive early learning and widespread, prestigious recognition for the teachers who offer it. The Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards narrowed that focus to the early childhood setting where it all begins in 1996. The StoryBus, in the meantime, extended the same high quality, hands-on learning of the Kohl Museum out to children in low-income neighborhoods starting in 2001.

Working together to provide the teachers and caregivers of young children with valuable resources and public recognition, the StoryBus and Kohl McCormick Awards have brought national attention to early childhood education in Chicago.

The financial contributions of several individuals and organizations have helped make this possible:

• Dolores Kohl Education Foundation
  
  
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• The McGowan Fund
  
  
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• Jim & Kay Mabie
  
  
• The employees and owners of Incredible Technologies
  
  
• John R. Houlsby Foundation
  
  
• Jack Miller Family Foundation
  
  
• Whole Foods Market Palatine
  
  
• C. Louis Meyer Family Foundation
  
  
• Chicago Board Options Exchange
  
  
• Chicago Tribune Charities
  
  
• Starbucks
  
  
• Rock For Reading
  
  
• William J. Clancy Foundation
  
  
• Mexican Administration in Education
  
  
• Chicago Board Options Exchange
  
  
• Alfred Goldstein Foundation
  
  
• The Men's Wearhouse
  
  
• De Lany Charitable Trust
  
  
• Experience, L.L.C.
  
  
• TY, Inc.

For more information on the Foundation and the Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards, please visit the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation and Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards websites.