The issue: Giving kids and their parents the tools they need to succeed in life.
Our view: Much-needed expansion of Douglass Community Services program is welcomed.
Douglass Community Services has a proven track record of helping people, from the very young to very old and everyone in between.
It should come as no surprise then that this extraordinarily efficient and fiscally responsible not-for-profit agency has gotten another feather for its hat.
Douglass has been awarded a $1,101,438 federal stimulus grant to expand its Early Head Start program.
Early Head Start currently has 52 kids ages birth to three and eight adults at two centers in Hannibal. Participation is based upon income.
The grant will allow Douglass to add 72 more infants, pregnant women and parents, and hire 15 more people.
Services will be added in Hannibal, and the program will expand to Louisiana, Bowling Green, Lewistown and Moberly.
The money couldn’t have come at a better time, because the number children living in low-income families is growing.
The expanded program is scheduled to debut March 1. Douglass will also continue its quality administration of the Head Start program for 410 kids at 13 centers in eight counties.
The first three years can set the stage for a child’s life.
It’s good to know that some of our hard-earned tax dollars are being poured back into a program that will go a long way toward putting kids on the right path to success.
Most of us cringe when we hear about some of the ways in which stimulus money has been spent, including the study of co-ed sex habits in New York, snow-making machines in Minnesota, a social science survey of Facebook use and a look at whether rabbit droppings are radioactive.
Thankfully, the Douglass grant is an example of stimulus dollars well spent.
It’s also one that will pay off down the road, and you can’t say that about irradiated animal dung.
