Head Start Shutdown Solution

The shutdown of the federal government, on top of the recent sequestration fiasco, had deprived nearly 80,000 children of access to Head Start services.  In addition, many other Head Start programs were also at threat of shutdown for not being able to access the funds already allocated to them because of issues with the HHS electronic payment system.

However, Yasmina Vinci, Executive Director of the National Head Start Association announced that as of October 9...

"... all Head Start programs but one, are open and serving children and families.  To a large degree, this is because on Friday afternoon, we received confirmation that a philanthropic couple — Laura and John Arnold, were generously willing to provide, from their personal funds, $10 million to keep the Head Start doors open for programs that did not have access to other funds.  All but $50,000 of the money is to be distributed to the neediest programs....

"A few county agencies, Community Action Programs, and school districts and one state have also been able to find funds with which to keep the doors of their respective Head Start programs open.  Our small staff worked through the weekend and nights pulling together a system for reaching out to closed and closing programs, processing requests for funds, signing grant agreements, and disbursing the funds to the neediest programs."

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