Our founding in 2013 was a result of three people from disparate backgrounds having a vision at different times and eventually coming together to create what we believe will one day be known as one of the great nonprofits of its day. In 2007 a career government employee nearing retirement, Alberta Granger [currently a retired Director of PELA and now a Board Advisor], who also owned a daycare/preschool in Tallahassee, FL had the opportunity to observe Marilyn Lewis’ early use of her "Preschool Emotional Literacy Program" and made the comment that it would be great if it somehow could get funded and made available for preschoolers throughout Florida. They stayed in touch and even discussed how a nonprofit could possibly get grants to fund its availability.

Then in 2008 a career equipment salesman nearing retirement, Lawrence Quamina [currently a retired Director of PELA and now a Board Advisor], first encountered the same program as he leased Fun Factory Education a copy machine. He found the program interesting as he watched the children respond to it and listened to the original songs being played. He commented that he sure wished it was available when his son was in preschool several years earlier. He commented that he’d love to see a nonprofit who could make the program available to preschools and he’d be happy to lend his sales savvy to raising funds if needed.

In 2011 Sunil Patel, a Doctor of Pharmacy, met a representative of Fun Factory Education who asked him if he had kids of his own. Dr. Patel said no, but he was certainly intending to have some one day, since he was still in his 30’s. That conversation resulted in Dr. Patel eventually buying Fun Factory’s 4-Disc Children’s Collection with songs, books, etc. for his many friends with preschool age children; he preferred educational gifts rather than toys, so no one was surprised to receive them. The feedback he received was very positive despite it not being high tech (i.e., many of his highly educated friends seem to prefer high tech toys, etc. for their children). This led him to not only meet Ms. Lewis but develop a lasting interest in how emotional literacy touches all aspects of a child’s immediate life as well as their future.

In 2013 he advised Ms. Lewis that he was starting a nonprofit solely to raise funds to donate her program to as many children as possible across America. He asked and was assured that he’d get her support by way of information, updates and discounted rates when it came time to purchase her program, as he worked to learn how to fund such an endeavor. Dr. Patel made clear that his goal was to rival any of the big name charities, many of which are household names, yet are not reflecting the in-the-trenches-work that must be done...many have even been involved in scandals that makes one wonder, has their time passed as the gatekeepers of American philanthropy. Ms. Lewis approved of his zeal, kept him apprised and even agreed to one day consider heading up the nonprofit as she got closer to retirement. She then advised him that she had several people who had mentioned to her of wanting to do the very same thing in the past, but to date nothing developed. She offered to provide him contact with several of those people and that resulted in Dr. Patel meeting Ms. Granger and Mr. Quamina whom he asked to be on the board of his new nonprofit (first named, Gravity Free University, with a name change in 2015 and now named Preschool Emotional Literacy Awareness [PELA]); both of them agreed to pledge a no salary requirement if they were to be involved - that pledge remains in force today.

New to this nonprofit endeavor and finding it challenging to say the least, Dr. Patel’s dedication to children being given the best tools in life and convinced that this emotional literacy program was indeed just that, he spent the first two years enduring a number of setbacks, e.g., unable to raise the considerable donations that would do as he dreamt it could, finding that most people were clueless to emotional literacy for children and what it meant, why it should be important not just to parents of preschoolers but to everyone who wants a more civil society and one where everyone could have a better appreciation of each other’s emotional contributions to work, school and play.

In 2015 Dr. Patel took his dedication to this important cause a step further when he took a hiatus from his work as a board certified nuclear pharmacist, and with his own savings he embarked on a journey to find out how this project could be funded long term. During that period and to this date he has not accepted small donations that would end up getting eaten up in administering the nonprofit, instead he has kept the nonprofit free of any commercial involvement whatsoever, deciding to only open it up to doing business once the right "formula" for a long "giving life" was developed. Dr. Patel returned to his duties as a Board Certified Nuclear Pharmacist after a 5+ year hiatus, having concluded that finally there is a light at the end of this long journey’s tunnel. Through the help of lawyers, CPAs, financial experts, etc. he believes that a "formula" to secure the future of PELA has finally been developed with an attorney he has had guidance from over the years. 

PELA finally sees a way to make its mark in philanthropy in ways that will be unprecedented and on a scale that has a blueprint consistent with long term success. The "no salary" pledge by its directors shall remain in force, thus only necessary administrative cost and travel expenses when needed will be paid out.

We further pledge to be dedicated to active participation in the building of a future where all children will have had an opportunity to unlock the doors of the rooms that houses the many emotions they do not understand, nor have been taught to engage for their betterment. This effort will take significant investment in early childhood development at the earliest stages of life, for which we are devoting our energy through Preschool Emotional Literacy Awareness.

Of the 20 million age 0-5 years old, an estimated 4-6 million children each year enter kindergarten emotionally unprepared as a direct result of a less than adequate Preschool initiative that includes all children everywhere (only a few states in America offer a fully funded free preschool program for its children and fewer cities) receiving the basic teachings of identifying their emotions and how they are appropriately used in their day to day existence.

The potential impact to our country is significant, if not bordering on catastrophic, in that failure to address early childhood development, and specifically emotional literacy, too often results in an unprepared workforce with a significant percentage of the next generation essentially not able to realize their full potential. Our economic security, as well as, our nation and world’s future is in jeopardy by these essential building blocks being ignored and/or underserved.

Failure to target how a child begins to understand his or her emotions is tantamount to sending them running through life with scissors in their hands. What is Emotional Literacy you ask? Most ills and misfortunes that a child, and eventually an adult, encounters can be traced to their ability, or lack thereof, of understanding their emotions and how to apply the right response with said emotions to any given life challenge, e.g., dating, picking friends, behavior at home or school, behavior in social settings, behavior eventually at their workplace with their work colleagues and their general decision making that could result in criminal tendencies becoming their norm.

PELA is dedicating its existence to meeting the emotional literacy deficiency challenges most preschoolers (and many of their parents) are completely unaware of, thus they too often become identified with personality traits that could have been better developed had they had some emotional direction and understanding.

Economists have established that the most impactful investment our country can make in human capital is in high quality early learning. It provides long-term benefits to both the child and society, alleviating poverty and resulting in lower incarceration rates, higher graduation rates, better health, and stronger ability to find and keep employment.

PELA’s formation is a result of our directors being exposed, first hand, to results demonstrating how quickly and easily a child will embrace emotional literacy guidance—even finding the experience fun when it is introduced in a manner that suits the child’s age level and their capacity to learn.

Our mission is to see that no child is deprived of such opportunity to learn about and explore his/her emotions solely because the financial wherewithal did not permit it. In addition, we have determined that too many preschoolers are being denied access to formal preschool education solely due to lack of funds. There are many government agencies and a number of private charities that try to mitigate this shortfall of funding, however it is never enough to meet the need. It is an established fact, based on evidence based research, that the Return On Investment for providing quality childcare to preschool children is a low of $7.00 to a high of $12.00 for every dollar so dedicated.

Our visionary founder, Dr. Patel sees a very bright future for PELA as awareness of the importance of social-emotional development for preschoolers is finally taking a more prominent role across America. He is looking into ways to make PELA a formidable national nonprofit [Public Charity] entity with each passing day showing more promise.

PELA envisions a very bright future as it embarks on a innovative journey to bring quality childcare to the millions of 0 to 5 year old children throughout America.