Community Services Consortium

Serving Linn, Benton, and Lincoln counties in Oregon. Helping people. Changing lives.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Summer Status No Slow-Down for CSC Head Start


CSC Head Start (CSCHS) continues to be busy, even though the Program is on summer status.

Donations
We are pleased to have received donations from:
$4,800 from Spirit Mountain for classroom related expenses
$700.00 unrestricted funds from the Eagles of Newport

With the budget cuts that CSCHS is experiencing from the state, the generosity of the community becomes more and more important. WE are very grateful to our supporters!

Public Outreach
Head Start Director Suzanne Miller has been on two local radio interviews and will be invited back to Newport KCUP radio in September and possibly before for further interviews and specialized focus on Head Start. We are looking into public presentations as well as possible public television for continued public relations.

Our “Friends of Head Start” group has met regularly and although small in size are committed. To celebrate the National Week of the Young Child in April, our Friends helped set up a children’s art show titled “Head Start Art” throughout Lincoln County which was covered by newspapers in Newport and Lincoln city. We currently have good media relationships and will continue to maintain these relationships.

Graduation
Graduation occurred at each Site on Wednesday, May 12. Over 400 family and community members attended programwide to participate in the festivities as 92 children moved on to Kindergarten and 67 children commenced into their second year of Head Start.
For the upcoming Program year, Lincoln City is expecting 33 returning children; Newport is expecting 27 returning children; and Toledo has 7 children who will return.

Enrollment
We are actively enrolling families throughout the County. We have had a major reduction in state grants this year and will have to reduce the number of children served by six. This is very sad news particularly in light of the underserved population throughout Lincoln County. Nonetheless, we are nearing our capacity numbers and will, of course, waitlist families.

In order to remain fiscally responsible, CSCHS’s Director, Suzanne Miller, announced that the current transportation system provided by CSCHS would have to be cancelled, which resulted in employee reductions.

It is important to remember that Head Start is the cornerstone of early education in our nation. So many people do not know all the services that Head Start offers that serve the child and families beyond school education and include health, nutrition, emotional well being, family involvement, as well as a host of other services offered through CSCHS by monthly family visits and continual outreach. Many families have utilized our services for job training, new home purchasing and other vital services.

Please check out the website for more information on CSC's Lincoln County Head Start Program.

Welcome to CSC's blog and e-newsletter!

These communications tools can be used to make announcements, acknowledge donors and volunteers, post videos and slideshows–whatever we want to share with our online community.

There are 3 ways to deliver info to stakeholders:

  1. The blog itself, which can be linked to our current website
  2. Email news blasts (blog articles sent via email as eNewsletters)
  3. RSS Feed (subscribers read in Google Reader or other feed reader, can also send posts to Facebook and Twitter)
We're excited about these communication tools and look forward to both your input and feedback for continuing improvement and positive information-sharing.

If you have agency/program information you'd like posted on this blog, please send full text and/or photos and videos, ideas, or suggestions to Janet Hessel and she will take the next steps.

Enjoy!