Rooster Booster to feature Joe Frazier

The Public Life Foundation was founded nearly two decades ago to engage and empower citizens to take meaningful action in community decision-making and public policy.

In recent years, the Foundation has expanded its scope by committing over $4 million of its assets to enhance early childhood education opportunities in our community. In 2020, the Foundation announced a multi-year partnership with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence to help make this vision a reality.

After several months of research, analysis, and deliberation, PLFO announced the formation of the Greater Owensboro Partnership for Early Development. This coalition of community leaders—representing the business, early and K-12 education, nonprofit, higher education, faithbased, healthcare, and government sectors—is dedicated to developing bold and innovative solutions to improve early learning outcomes.

Joe Frazier (M.S. Sociology & M.A. Philosophy) is the founding Executive Director of the Kentucky Chamber Foundation’s Center for Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. Prior to his role at the Chamber Frazier served in Diversity and Inclusion related roles at different institutions including Bellarmine University as the Director of the Dr. Patricia Carver Office of Identity and Inclusion, and at Virginia Tech where he served as the Assistant Director for the Asian Cultural Engagement Center. Frazier also started his own DE&I consulting practice Education to Action LLC.

Frazier serves on a number of boards and taskforces for Kentuckians including the Board of Directors for Volunteers of America Mid States and the Louisville Association for Community Economics (LACE), the Kentucky Non-Profit Network’s Racial Equality Taskforce, and the President’s Advisory Council for the Noir Black Chamber of Commerce. He is also recognized among Louisville’s 2021 40 Under 40.

The partnership discovered that access to high quality early childhood education is not accessible to all children in Greater Owensboro for a number of reasons, ranging from affordability and availability of high quality early learning environments to issues pertaining to recruiting and retaining early childhood educators.

Why early learning? Research clearly illustrates that children who participate in quality early learning are prepared for kindergarten, ultimately increasing their likelihood of securing proficiency in reading and math by the