Marni Sweet, 66, beloved advocate for children

To thousands of working parents and their children, Marni Sweet - head of the renowned Parent-Infant Center in West Philadelphia - was among the most important people in the world for the last 25 years.

The 66-year-old director of the progressive child-care center died of brain cancer Sunday at Cathedral Village, where she had been for three months after being diagnosed with a rapidly spreading form of the disease. Miss Sweet lived in West Mount Airy.

As the daughter of a schoolteacher in Ohio, Miss Sweet never stopped working to make the world a better place for children.

After earning a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1963 from the University of Cincinnati, she became president of the national students' YWCA while earning a master's degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Miss Sweet strove for social change by persuading the YWCA to participate in civil rights demonstrations.

After earning a master's degree in 1965 in social work, she moved to St. Louis to work for the local Girl Scout Council. When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Miss Sweet successfully urged the national Girl Scouts board to end segregation within the organization.

In the late 1960s Miss Sweet moved to Chicago, where she worked for Head Start at the Cabrini Green housing project and became director of Girl Scout Camps in Chicago.

In 1977, Miss Sweet moved to Philadelphia and earned a second master's degree, in early childhood education, from Temple University in 1983. She taught at Restoration Preschool, was director of the East Mount Airy Neighbors Center, and assistant director of the Temple University Day Care Center.

In 1982, Miss Sweet was named director of the Parent-Infant Center. Under her leadership, the organization quadrupled in size to 225 students, trained more than 50 staff members, and developed programs to increase the number of low-income students. Under her leadership, the Parent-Infant Center became a model.

Miss Sweet was named president of the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children. She led a coalition of day-care providers, educators and parents to stop Congress from cutting federal child-care funding. She was honored in 2002 as an agent of change by Women's Way.

At the Parent-Infant Center in West Philadelphia, Miss Sweet invited grandparents, parents, baby-sitters and friends on Friday mornings to the Spruce Street center for playgroups. In summer, she set up family camping trips. Parent education programs and family social groups also contributed to the community within the community.

"I once watched her soothe a child who was afraid of the dark," friend Mary Daniels said. "She bent down, gave him a flashlight, and showed him how to use it."

Miss Sweet believed in training the staff, paying them as much as possible, and including parents in the program. It was her dream to set up a model affordable, high-quality child-care center.

"Marni was the type of person who said, 'If if needs fixing, then fix it," her brother David said. "Each person at her memorial service will be given a leather bookmark with those words to remember her."

In addition to her brother, Miss Sweet is survived by a sister, Ann Brubaker; and another brother, John.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at First United Methodist Church of Germantown, 6023 Germantown Ave.

Donations may be sent to the Parent-Infant Center, Sweet Dreams, 4205 Spruce St., Philadelphia 19104.