Reflections from the Playhouse

Hello GiGi’s Atlanta!

Happy Holidays! As we reach the year’s end, we reflect on our achievements and blessings over the past twelve months. At GiGi’s Playhouse Atlanta, we have much to celebrate! We see it every day as kids strive for their “best of all” learning to crawl, walk, read, write and solve math problems making purposeful progressions along the way.

This summer, I was honored to take on the new role as board President for the Playhouse. Thank you for all of your congratulations and feedback since the announcement.

It has been an exciting period for growth for our Playhouse. This marks our fifth year of service to the Atlanta community. We serve some 400 families and we are honored to have had more than 350 volunteers work with our kids this year. Our programs offer education, social and developmental support to help our kids thrive. We have expanded our offerings to make sure we are a welcome place for young people from infancy to young adulthood.

I have had some time to meet with many of you one-on-one to hear your thoughts about the Playhouse, where we are, and where should we be going. There are many more of you I’d like to speak to about our Playhouse. After getting your feedback, speaking with Fred, and making my own observations, here are some of our goals for 2016:

• We have a fabulous new Education Director working to our expand and improve our programming. If you haven’t yet taken advantage of our FREE tutoring, consider signing up! My son, Jake, has been in and out of the program for many years and we have witnessed first-hand the progress that can be made with a little extra help. Our tutors have been flexible with my complicated schedule and will work with you. Please reach out to Natasha Nolan to sign up. Did I mention it is FREE?

• We are trying to expand our offerings and opportunities to the kids ages 10 and older, by adding more and more relevant programming. Did you know we offer a fitness program and have a drama class available? We will be reintroducing our TeenTastic program. It will be geared for kids 10 and older and there will be other local Middle and High School kids there having fun with our boys and girls. The goal is to help foster authentic friendships for our T21 kiddos. Jake is the only kid with T21 in his school and I think it is important for him to know other kids like himself and to have a diverse group of real friends.

• Most of all, we want to see more of you taking advantage of your playhouse! There is nothing like seeing your Playhouse packed with kids! Even if you can only make it out once a month, you will be positively impacting your child and the other kids there that day. Whether you enroll your child in one of our ongoing programs like Skill Builders, Literacy, Tutoring, Friday Friends and Hop, Skip,Jump, come for open play, host a birthday party or play group, or attend one of our social events, there is a place for you here! The Playhouse has endless possibilities for our young people but we need your involvement to make it happen! Visit, participate, share the impact on social media, come to our T21 Run this Spring! We need you!

And remember everyone is welcome at the Playhouse and everything is free!

Please reach out to me if you have any thoughts about these ideas, or you have any other concerns about the Playhouse.

On behalf of the board and staff, we wish you all Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year!

Scott Jeffries
President, GiGi’s Playhouse Atlanta