Last month, PNC Bank announced the continuation of its award-winning Grow Up Great initiative, a comprehensive community-based approach to kindergarten readiness. The financial services group with branches all over metro Detroit launched the program seven years ago with a financial commitment of $100 million over 10 years to improve the lives of children and families in the geographic areas they serve.

I had the privilege of attending an event with PNC in Washington, D.C., where the bank not only renewed its commitment to kindergarten readiness, but it more than doubled its financial investments, promising $250 million over the next 10 years. Remarkable.

Grow Up Great works with high-quality early education programs like Head Start and deeply embedded community partners to give parents and caregivers the tools they need to prepare their children for success in kindergarten. But that is not all. Every PNC employee is given up to 40 hours a year in paid volunteer time. That’s right, actual people in neighborhoods and early childhood programs reading to kids, assembling playgrounds and offering a helping hand. And every PNC branch has activity kits for preschoolers that will help prepare them for school. More than two million of those kits have been distributed nationwide and across Detroit.

It seems that we only hear negative stories about corporate America right now, but every day in Detroit you can witness many large corporations standing up for children. PNC is a bank but it is also a champion for Detroit’s kids. Others stand with them, such as General Motors and DTE Energy. It is no secret that we have a long way to go if we are going to get every Detroit student college-ready by the time they graduate high school, but champions like PNC are reasons for hope that we are on the right path.

-- Kristen McDonald is the Foundation’s Program Director for Education.