As you certainly know by now, every type of business has been greatly affected by Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Businesses that bring together community have particularly suffered. One such business, The Cathay School, Cathay, of Rockville, Maryland has developed a twofold approach to cope with the pandemic: continue to provide education and social interaction through virtual methods and involve the community in actively and creatively combating the virus that has us in this situation in the first place.
Initially, The Cathay School addressed only its current community’s educational needs. Even before public schools developed their distance learning plans, Cathay began running online preschool sessions for its current enrolled students. Now, in an effort to provide a caring educational community for all of our youngest members, Cathay has begun offering carefully curated virtual early childhood courses to the public. While the courses cannot be “equivalent to preschool” (NAEYC), they provide the routine multi-sensory input and social interaction that young children need in their lives. Cathay virtual early childhood courses provide interactive and engaging developmentally-appropriate activities from each educational domain that stimulate the mind, based upon researched curriculum and content, and taught by highly-qualified instructors with early childhood experience.
In addition to classes aimed at the young audience, Cathay also responded to the pandemic by offering online courses for elementary and middle school students. These courses cover both academic and non-academic subjects ranging from web design to future investors to painting and drawing. These courses similarly have a well-developed curriculum taught by an appropriately-trained staff. To check out and register for Cathay courses online, just visit https://shop.ccaccacademy.org/product-category/online/.
To address the pandemic more generally, The Cathay School created Cathay’s Connected World, a virtual talentshow that raises money for combating Covid-19. All proceeds will go towards the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Fund. Through this fund, donors support leading scientific organizations that are developing the most promising diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines, in order to stop the spread of the virus and help speed the return to health of those who are sick. Over 20 local youth from the DMV area have submitted performances for this talent show so far and Cathay has been able to raise over $2,000 towards its goal of $5,000. In order to view performances and contribute you can visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/cathay039s-connected-world-200.