Recognizing March 20, 2025, as Children First Day in the City of Philadelphia.

Recognizing March 20, 2025, as Children First Day in the City of Philadelphia. WHEREAS, In 1978, Christie “Cricket” Hastings, Ruth Madden, Happy Fernandez, Marciene Mattleman, Margaret Estey, and Lucy Sayre founded Philadelphia/Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY) to ensure government agencies and non-profit institutions were fulfilling their responsibilities to improve the lives of the City’s youth; and WHEREAS, These citizen activists pushed to redress the Rizzo administration’s legacy of disinvestment in children including failure to repair playgrounds, reduction in youth programs, and hostility toward black teens who protested for better public schools; and WHEREAS, PCCY immediately formed a task force on juvenile justice and has pushed for dozens of reforms over the past 45 years, including leading the 2018 advocacy to create the Youth Residential Placement Task Force established in 2018, and the Youth Ombudsperson’s Office created in 2022 that added a layer of protection for children who are institutionalized; and WHEREAS, PCCY’s inaugural report Status of Children and Youth in Philadelphia in 1985 , establishing its reputation for basing PCCY’s advocacy efforts on strong research and analysis; the 2025 report on the status of children found that 47% of Philadelphia’s families need a better partner in government to meet the basic needs for healthy child development of their children; and WHEREAS, PCCY played a multi-decade role in meeting the health care needs …