PNC Financial Services Group today will announce a $250 million extension of "PNC Grow Up Great," a program supporting early childhood education that more than 1 million children have been a part of since it was launched in 2004.

Jim Rohr, PNC chairman and chief executive officer, will make the announcement in Washington, D.C., accompanied by preschoolers and Washington Mayor Vincent Gray. Elmo and Cookie Monster will be there, too, because the PNC program has underwritten a block of "Sesame Street" broadcasts.

In eight years, "PNC Grow Up Great" has spent more than the $100 million it had committed to spend over 10 years, Mr. Rohr said in an interview Tuesday.

The decision to add another $250 million, providing help for another decade, represents the company's growth since the initiative was first undertaken and the success of the program itself.

"The company is much larger, we're in a lot more markets today, and the success of it gives us confidence that this will be really beneficial to communities and the kids," Mr. Rohr said. "Right from the beginning this was about the kids.

"We're going to continue what we've done before because it's been successful, but we also will continue to evolve."

He said PNC officials wondered a decade ago whether the company could best serve society by focusing funding in one particular area of need.

"We settled on early childhood education and based our decision on studies that showed that for every dollar you spend on early childhood education, society saves $16 in rehabilitation, incarceration and welfare. There was a need."

Mr. Rohr said evaluations of children at the early childhood centers where PNC's money has been invested show that they have improved dramatically in math.