Connect.
Create.
Shape. 🌻
This is your hub, built by and for early childhood leaders of color. Find what you need to stay rooted in community, build collective power, and shape what comes next.
"I realized I needed to move toward practices that allowed for restoration and healing. EC LOC helped create the conditions for that shift by affirming that care for ourselves is not separate from leadership — it is essential to it."
Building the Conditions for Thriving
We are a growing national network of Early Childhood Leaders of Color, 550+ strong across 40 states, working to transform the early childhood ecosystem from the inside out.
EC LOC launched in 2022 by and for leaders of color navigating the weight of inequity while pushing toward liberation. From our first co-created vision to today, we center rest, genuine relationships, and co-creation as the foundation for collective power. Not as add-ons to the work, but as the work itself.
In 2026, we are deepening belonging, strengthening regional hubs, and creating clearer pathways for member-led ideas to grow into coordinated action.
How to Get Involved
Whether you're just joining or finding your way back in, here's where to start.
Our Guiding Principles
These principles shape how we make decisions, allocate resources, and show up for each other. They come from our Network Roadmap and run through everything we build.
This is a network of Early Childhood Leaders of Color, by EC LOC, for EC LOC. Leadership, strategy, and programming are centered on our lived experiences and priorities.
You choose how you show up. All levels of engagement are valued, whether attending events, leading a working group, or simply resting in community.
Our perspectives shape the design of every program. We are asked not just what we need, but what we want to see in the world we're building.
No programming is required. When we do ask for your time and strategic input, it's compensated. Always.
We aim for impact at every level: personal wellness, organizational growth, and systemic change, because liberation lives in all three.
We build collective power to disrupt inequity. Rest is not a reward. It's resistance. It's the soil for imagination and possibility.