Here's to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!

The $9 million investment in White Center children from the world's biggest philanthropic organization will benefit our most vulnerable citizens, poor children younger than age 5.

The Gates Foundation and its partners will test the theory that spending money to improve child care, provide early education, teach parenting skills, even offer job training for parents, will all help create more productive, more promising lives for kids who grow up poor.

Kindergarten teachers frequently complain that many children come to school with little knowledge of letters, numbers or other basic knowledge. The Gates Foundation's goal is to help prepare all kids for their first day of school. It is hoped the work in White Center will provide a successful model for others to follow.

Studies and experience show that, when children succeed at learning at an early age, they are more likely to finish school and go on to college and less likely to be unemployed or commit crimes.

Like investors everywhere, the Gates Foundation is hopeful its idea will be profitable. "Profit" in this case is in future savings for government, which won't have to spend public money on so many unemployment checks or provide medical care due to lack of insurance. Kids with a strong foundation are more likely to grow up to become contributing members of society rather than service consumers.

One of the intriguing aspects of the Gates Foundation's gifts in general is how they demonstrate an American freedom that is rarely talked about - the freedom individuals have to try and solve social problems that stymie or fail to rouse the government.

Much is made, and rightly so, of the limitless ideas Americans conjure up to make money. The strength of the free enterprise system is the freedom to invent and sell any product, so long as it's legal and won't infringe on anyone else's freedom.

Those rules made Bill Gates a mountain range of money. Now he and his wife Melinda have turned their attention to creative ways of giving away much of their fortune.

The latest beneficiaries are the kids of White Center and Boulevard Park. We applaud and deeply thank the Gates Foundation for taking on the issue of early childhood development and particularly for doing so in White Center.