Our Mission To educate and empower parents and teachers, give families child care choices, and expand access to high-quality early care and education. In 1999, All Our Kin first opened its doors in a New Haven housing project with two staff members, six mothers, six children, and one core belief: all children deserve access to high-quality early learning opportunities. Our work grew out of the conviction that parents should not be forced to choose between their families' economic survival and their children's safe, healthy development. As we worked with parents in our child care collaborative, training them to become early childhood educators themselves, we came to see that our commitment to educational equity required us to expand our mission to encompass all providers struggling to care for low-income children. Since then, we have grown organically, each good idea furthering our efforts to make high-quality early childhood education accessible to low-income families in the neighborhoods where they live. Our idea of "community" continues to become more inclusive, expanding from parents on public assistance, to licensed family child care providers, to unlicensed caregivers, and finally relatives and neighbors who provide informal care to children.