Fresno’s Head Start program faced hundreds of layoffs. How $42 million helped save jobs
On Friday morning, the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission announced that it received a federal grant award of $42 million to fund its Head Start program.
A new $42 million grant will help keep Fresno County’s Head Start programs afloat and save hundreds of jobs, officials announced Friday.
News of the money comes just weeks before the program’s funds were scheduled to dry up.
Fresno EOC board chair Linda Hayes, CEO Emilia Reyes and Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, celebrated the funding award Friday morning at the Fresno EOC Early Head Start Child Development Center.
“As a country and as a community, we have faced a devastating year,” said Reyes. Fresno EOC faced the added challenge of possibly losing their award to run Head Start, its largest program, which services more than 3,000 children from ages 0-5 in Fresno County.
Fresno EOC had to re-compete for the program funding due to the Office of Head Start rules and regulations. The program funding would have ended on June 30. Over 600 jobs were at risk, according to previous estimates shared with The Bee.
To save its program, Fresno EOC partnered with the Fresno Unified School District, the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools, and other early childhood education programs to compete for the grant renewal. The funding, which was awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will run for five years.
“We worked very hard in recent months to ensure that the $42 million from Health and Human Services would come to the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission for the Head Start program,” said Costa. “Head Start has been a real success throughout the country in providing support for early childhood development.”
Since 1965, Fresno EOC has operated the Head Start program, which offers educational, emotional, social, health, and nutrition services for pregnant women and children from birth to age 5 throughout 30-plus sites in Fresno County.
“Fresno EOC is the best agency to be delivering these services because we not only can provide early care and education, we can provide those other essential services” that help families survive and “hopefully get out of poverty,” said Reyes. Those other services include training and employment programs, food assistance, among others.
Costa said that the program is crucial for the economic well-being of the region. Head Start operates as the “de facto child care for the working poor,” said Costa. “Childcare is a critical element of whether or not people go back to work.”
Melissa Montalvo is a reporter with The Fresno Bee and a Report for America corps member. This article is part of The California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequity and economic survival in California.
