BATON ROUGE - The Geaux Far Louisiana coalition group hosted their first annual Day at the Capitol event Tuesday where they provided information about their initiative to broaden access to education.

The group, made up of early childhood providers, parents, policymakers and community partners, was founded on the idea that any child can thrive in their communities regardless of their backgrounds and works to ensure that parents have access to education, early child development and health programs.

The group's founders, Rochelle Wilcox and Libbie Sonnier, highlighted their connections with State Representatives who provide helpful legislation and a public voice for young community children and their families.

"Everybody from the Delta, to North Louisiana and South Louisiana. We were really strategic and intentional about making sure that everyone, every parish, had a seat at the table so they can have a say," Wilcox said.

Wilcox says the coalition is also aware of the spike in crime going on recently and said if the community works to give the younger generation the foundation that they need to succeed, those children are less-likely to commit violent crimes in the future.

"Your voice matters. We want to make sure that parents and communities are forward facing in solving a lot of the things that we are seeing everyday when we omit families, partners, and all of those people that are in the trenches everyday we don't help solve the problem and so that is what we wanna do. We want to help with the preventative on the early end, solving what we see 10, 15 years from now and their voice matters," Wilcox said.

Sonnier said providing access to prenatal care, healthcare and child care can make the community a much safer environment.

"We talk often about the brain-drain and people leaving Louisiana. How we get people to come to Louisiana and stay in Louisiana it to make sure that families and children can thrive and that is what this initiative is trying to do," Sonnier said.

To learn more about the coalition, click here.