Santa Rosa Press Democrat -- Sonoma County Head Start Awarded $3.4 Million Grant

News Article

By Guy Kovner

Sonoma County's Head Start program received a $3.4 million federal grant to continue serving 552 preschool-aged children throughout the county, officials said Monday.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, announced the grant to the local anti-poverty agency, Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County.

Head Start programs "help make sure all children have a foundation for future success," Thompson said.

Ofelia Ochoa-Morris, director of Early Head Start/Head Start, said the program -- founded as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in 1965 -- "promotes school readiness" for children from birth to age 5 in low-income families.

Sonoma County's Head Start funding is fixed to cover 552 children at 12 sites from Petaluma to Cloverdale and Sonoma to west Santa Rosa, not including West County. Participants pay nothing for the program.

The federal budget sequester last year cost the local program $451,436, prompting its closure last June, reducing the 10-month program to nine months, Ochoa-Morris said. There will be no closure this year, she said.

Community Action Partnership will apply for the lost funding, and Ochoa-Morris said the agency expects to get it.

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