The Onondaga Citizens League honored child care advocate Peggy Liuzzi with the Dr. Bettye Caldwell Advocacy Award on Monday, April 14 at a conference marking release of OCL’s new study report, “Early Childhood and School Readiness: Creating a Community Where All Children Thrive by Five.”
Liuzzi retired as executive director of Child Care Solutions, a resource and advocacy organization, after more than 40 years in early childhood care and education in Syracuse. The award is named after the former Syracuse University professor who co-founded The Children’s Center, the early learning experiment that inspired the national Head Start program. Sean Kirst, who has written about Dr. Caldwell, who lives in Arkansas, and the Syracuse origins of Head Start in his Syracuse newspaper column, presented the award. Dr. Alice Honig, professor emerita at Syracuse University and early colleague of Dr. Caldwell, also attended the event.