Head Start helps more than 600 families in Santa Cruz County

Now more than ever education programs are seeing cuts across the board. But one federal program is still alive and thriving. The Head Start program was launched in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson. On Friday in Capitola, organizers gathered to celebrate its 50 years of service.

Head Start is a program designed to break the cycle of poverty by providing pre-school children of low-income families early education skills. As well as health, nutrition and social services.

“We have about 18 percent of children under the age of 18 living in poverty on the Central Coast,” said Cynthia Sloane, Head Start director.

In Santa Cruz County, they serve 615 families. She said the program is especially necessary on the Central Coast.

“With the disparity in income, with high cost of living, with challenges in finding housing, for a lot of our low income families living here is really difficult,” said Sloane.

Erandy Herrera Reyes and her family know that first-hand.

The program also allow her to get help with food and clothing for her daughter.

“It’s a really big help because sometimes my husband, he works in seasonal, so it’s hard for me to, like, buy clothing sometimes. That helps a lot,” said Reyes.

With an election coming up, federal programs are under scrutiny but Sloane said Head Start is here to stay.

“Head Start has really been able to evolve over the years. It’s really become cutting edge over early childhood education, brain research, of all the things that we really need to know about young children and the kind of education that we need to be able to provide for them so that they will do well in school.”