Green Hills Head Start Is Topic At June 17 Rotary Club Meeting

The Green Hills Head Start program was the topic of a program presented at the Thursday, June 17 meeting of the Trenton Rotary Club, held at the BTC Bank community room. Kim Washburn presided at the business meeting, Dan Wilford gave the prayer and Chris Hoffman was the sergeant at arms.
Lisa McLain, family engagement specialist, and Jenny Lewis, enrollment specialist, told about the program, which serves children age pre-natal to five years old in the nine counties of Grundy, Mercer, Harrison, Daviess, Livingston, Putnam, Sullivan. Linn and Caldwell. Head Start is a national program, started in 1965, with the local program beginning in 1971. Green Hills Head Start is funded by a federal grant to serve 188 children ages three to five and 34 in “early Head Start,” which serves children from birth to three. Participation is income-based. Children can participate in either in-classroom settings (ages three to five) or home-based settings (pre-natal to age five). North Central Missouri College is the program administrator with a policy council comprised of community members and parents serving as a liaison and making program recommendations.
Head Start provides health screenings for children as well as services such as vision, dental and hearing checks. They also help with getting children immunized. There is a nutrition/meal component to the program as well with classrooms offering homemade meals that are served “family style.” This allows the children to learn about eating meals as a family and helping to clean up and put away dishes after the meal is complete. Home visitors in the home-base program provide a “snack experience.” It was noted each child enrolled in the program receives a new pair of shoes when school starts, courtesy of the “Shoes from the Heart” program based out of Macon County. It was noted Head Start has many community partners and volunteers that help make the program a success.
The next meeting of the Rotary Club will be on Thursday, June 26 with a representative from the North Central Missouri Children’s Advocacy Center presenting the program.