YAKIMA -- Thrive by Five Washington and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today announced the first round of funding that will be used to boost early learning for children in east Yakima.

Ready by Five, a community partnership formerly known as the East Yakima Early Learning Initiative, will receive $5 million to deliver programs for children from birth to age 5, their parents and caregivers.

Bill Gates Sr., co-chairman of both the Gates Foundation and Thrive by Five and the father of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates Jr., traveled to Yakima to make the announcement this morning before about 120 community members. Also on hand was Graciela Italiano-Thomas, president and chief executive officer of Thrive by Five Washington.

“Too many of our children in this state enter school unprepared for kindergarten,” Gates said.

This first phase of funding will help bolster programs and other efforts aiming to improve school readiness for youth residing in some of Yakima’s most challenged neighborhoods.

The money will be used for programs that will include home visitation programs for expecting families and families with young children, parenting support activities and a kindergarten transition program.

Additionally, a quality improvement system will be developed for licensed child-care centers. About $500,000 of the first phase will be set aside for design and planning for a new early learning center that would be constructed at the current site of the Southeast Yakima Community Center. The center would serve as a hub for early learning services.

This round of funding is the first of a 10-year pledge by the Gates Foundation, which is estimated at $30 million over the term.

The Ready by Five project has been in the works since summer 2006, when the Gates Foundation selected Yakima as one of two demonstration communities in the state aiming to improve school readiness for children 5 and younger. The other early learning demonstration community is White Center, an unincorporated ethnically diverse neighborhood southwest of Seattle.

The east Yakima project will serve a predominantly Latino neighborhood that spans 5.5 square miles and includes about 3,700 children ages 5 and younger and about 1,000 parents.

Supporters say the projects in the two Washington state communities will field test the best early learning approaches for children and families and serve as a model for what can be done locally and statewide.