45 this summer

Head Start Turns 45 this Summer

LBJ State of Union War on Poverty
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfT03Ihtlds

LBJ – Poverty 1964 Election Ad
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=plCkZ38ftlI&feature=related

On May 18^th, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the beginning of Project Head Start: “We set out to make certain that poverty’s children would not be forevermore poverty’s captives,” he said in a Rose Garden press conference.

He and Sargent Shriver, then director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, conceived a radical plan to attack one of the roots of poverty – poor education. That summer, Head Start began with slightly more than 500,000 children from low-income families with the goal of giving them a “head start” on their future.

Years later, brain research would prove the importance of the earliest years influencing a child’s growth and development. Long-term research would also prove the positive impact on graduation rates and reduction in juvenile crime, among other effects.

Judy Chase took up the challenge in Easton that summer, founding the area’s first Head Start program. She hired Pat Levin in 1972 to direct the fledging program.

Chase began Head Start with a few dozen children. Today, Head Start in the Lehigh Valley, operating in both Lehigh and Northampton counties, has 1200 children.

Since 1965, an estimated 25 million children have been enrolled in Head Start nationwide. We estimate that our Lehigh Valley program has enrolled 23,000.