the death penalty. In 2000, she joined the Tribune's editorial board. First Five Years Fund The First Five Years Fund's goal is to expand high-quality early learning services to one million additional children from birth to age five, with half of that expansion serving infants, toddlers and their families. Through public education, federal advocacy and coordinated outreach, the First Five Years Fund hopes to garner increased support for early learning activities that are: Integrated from birth to age five, with special focus on infants and toddlers; High-quality and comprehensive in scope; and Focused first on serving those children most at-risk "Early learning is one of the smartest public investments that we can make. Children shouldn't be playing catch-up when they enter kindergarten, and yet so many do. This emphasis on early learning services for babies and toddlers is because by the time a child turns three, a majority of their brain growth has already occurred. If we want greater school success later and a better-skilled workforce, we need to ensure the proper development of our most at-risk children at these earliest ages. Our goal then, is to support high-quality learning programs, such as Early Head Start, followed by preschool, for these earliest learners so that even the most at-risk children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn." Cornelia Grumman, First Five Years Fund. Grumman stepped down as the executive director of the First Five Years Fund in March, 2012. Personal Today, Grumman is married to journalist James Warren (journalist), they have two sons, Blair and Eliot. They currently reside in the north side of Chicago. Awards Grumman received a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for her series of Chicago Tribune editorials "Restoring Justice," that she wrote on capital punishment. Her editorials called on government officials to improve procedures for eyewitness identifications, address serious inequities in death-sentence convictions related to race and geography, narrow the eligibility for death penalty and acknowledge the problems with executing the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, and juvenile offenders. "With the authority to impose the death penalty comes a responsibility to get it right," she wrote in her October 3, 2002 editorial, "The Future of Capital Punishment." She fervently added, "Now's the time to get it right. Get it right or get rid of it." In 2001, 2005 and 2006, Grumman also received Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for editorials on children and family issues. She received a