Website Redesign for Social Services Agency

Yeled v'Yalda Early Childhood Center

Yeled v'Yalda (which is Hebrew for Boy and Girl) provides a range of social services including education, childcare, and health and nutrition services. Most recipients are between the ages of 0-5, or parents of the same.
Programs include Head Start (government-sponsored preschool); WIC (Women, Infants and Children nutrition program); special education; speech, physical, and occupational therapies; a medical center; and a fitness center.
We are distinguished from other organizations in the field by the wide range of services we provide--we offer lots of options, so we are a kind of "one-stop-shop." We pride ourselves on our numerous and varied offerings, and would like to emphasize that if possible.

Jewish and multi-ethnic parents of young children.

In general, we are looking for something fresh, exciting and graphical--nothing template-like, and something that's a strong concept that carries through the design, as opposed to individual elements arranged on a page.
Screen size should be 960 pixels
We want the color scheme to be bright and airy--light blues and greens and other spring pastels. No muted or retro colors or earthtones.
The site should project the idea of a professional organization that is oriented towards families and serves the whole community. Children are an important focus of our organization (they won't be visiting the site, but it's important to emphasize that we service children).
Therefore: important qualities for the site to convey are professional, family-friendly, and community-minded.
We like sites that have depth and dimension as opposed to being totally flat. We also like styles that incorporate illustration without looking cartoony.

1

We're looking for a homepage. The main navigation should include "About Us", "News and Events", "Professionals", "WIC", and "Fitness Center".
The main feature should be a large area for a slideshow where we can rotate images of special events or news items.
We want a mini calendar so people can see upcoming events at a glance and a news module.
Somewhere on the page we also need a subnavigation with links to the various programs, and also a brief blurb describing our organization.

http://www.yeled.org
This is just to give you an idea of what we do, but please don't stick too closely to its design. For example, we can lose those "general" "parents" and "professional" sections at the bottom

http://www.groupon.com--a totally different industry, but we like the colors and feel