Every year, 1,000 of 3,000 5-year-olds in Escambia County show up for their first day of school one to two years behind their kindergarten classmates. A key reason is many parents do not understand the role of language in brain development. Studer Community Institute and Thirty Million Words will partner in developing a model for a citywide wraparound approach to impacting early learning from birth to kindergarten. IMPACT funds will be used to provide IMPACT Brain Bags to every parent of a newborn in Escambia County, as they leave the hospital, to help explain the importance of talking with their babies. The bags will contain print and multimedia tools to help parents nurture their children’s language development by using the guidelines of the successful Thirty Million Words Initiative and other programs currently in use elsewhere in the state. The bags will contain a “baby book” with developmental milestones for parents to look for at 12, 18, 24 months, etc., a picture book to read to their children, a lullaby CD, a letter from the superintendent of schools, a small toy for playtime, and other educational information. The project will also pay for the development of a curriculum and salary for a social worker to make home visits to the families with newborns in the neighborhoods surrounding the 11 elementary schools with the county’s worst kindergarten-readiness rates. In order for Thirty Million Words and the University of Chicago to partner with SCI, they require funding by an outside organization for the first year to demonstrate community-based support of the project.