Brightside Up's Dianne Meckler Scholarship Winners

Brightside Up would like to congratulate the following recipients of the Dianne Meckler Scholarship! The Dianne Meckler Scholarship was created and named after Brightside Up's (then we were the Child Care Council) first executive director to celebrate her leadership. The scholarship is awarded to a professional who has exhibited leadership in the field of early childhood or school-age care. Please join us in congratulating the following applicants:

Claudia Wolfgang, a Group Family Child Care provider with 35 years experience providing early childhood services to children and their families. Claudia is interested in pursuing training , college credits, and coursework in pottery, painting, wood working; skills that she can use to aid children in expressing themselves and enhance story writing by children.  Claudia is interested in learning how to translate the children’s life stories into art.  

Rebecca Grunenwald, a Family Child Care provider at Becca’s House of Early Learning. Rebecca will use the Dianne Meckler Scholarship to purchase the Creative Curriculum for Family Child Care.  The curriculum and assessment system will help Rebecca to better meet the needs of children through purposeful observation & planning.

Debra Freer, a teacher at the Albany Community Action Partnership Early Childhood Education Program.  Debra is interested in learning more about children with identified special needs and hopes to learn more about how to help children develop fundamentally at their level.

Julie Halsdorf, a Family Services Coordinator for SCAP Early Learning Program (ELP), is responsible for implementing and providing ongoing comprehensive support to our Family Service Workers in order to ensure that they best support families by promoting family wellbeing, self-sufficiency, and social competency. Julie is an active part of our Early Learning Program Management team, Leadership team for Pyramid Implementation to fidelity as well as working with our Site Supervisors to bring Positive Solutions to all sites this school year. Julie is currently enrolled in the National Family Development Credential® Program (FDC™). FDC is a professional development course and credentialing program for frontline family workers to learn and practice skills of strength-based family support while working with families. Julie has decided to further her education as SUNY Albany and work towards obtaining her MSW.

Gladys Galarza, a group family child care provider with over 12 years of experience in the industry. Gladys earned her Child Development Associate Credential (CDA) and is currently pursuing her studies at SUNY Albany in School Administration.  She is currently in their honors program.