Four of Renaldo Bowles’ five children have participated in the Head Start program at Focus: Hope.
He was not happy at all about federal funding being denied for the first time in 14 years.
“It’s us today, it might be you tomorrow,” Bowles said on Tuesday (Aug. 12).
He was one of the voices from Tuesday afternoon’s packed town hall at Focus: Hope’s headquarters on Oakman Blvd. in response to the potential end of their Head Start program
He and his wife work full time, and the program has provided the childcare they desperately need.
“All they ask for is, first of all, and volunteer. I’m part of the men’s group. There I go and volunteer, and I help other young men there, single men, single parents as well. So, it was that’s like a whole family atmosphere,” said Bowles.
The decision to deny the funding came after nearly nine months of waiting.
“Folks don’t understand, it basically means you can’t operate,” Portia Roberson, Focus: Hope’s CEO, said on Tuesday. “It’s about $6 million of our budget, and it takes about that amount of money for the 300 kids we’ve been servicing.
“So, without it, while we’ll still do some programming with other funding, we won’t be able to do the type of Head Start program, or Early Head Start program, that we’ve been doing for the last 14 years,” Robinson said.
The nonprofit was founded in 1968 as an organization dedicated to overcoming racism and poverty by providing education and training for underrepresented minorities and others in the city.
Roberson found out last Thursday that the grant had been denied, but the formal announcement was made via email on Monday night.
“This will be the first time in more than a decade that these neighborhoods will be without a Head Start program,” the email said. “Without access to Head Start, these children will lose vital early learning, nutrition, health, and family support services that prepare them for success in school and in life.”
She held back tears as she implored the room full of parents and community activists to lead a letter-writing campaign to help restore funding.
Head Start programs serve nearly 450 children and their families across the city of Detroit.
In addition, the early learning programs also provide free breakfast, lunch, and snacks for kids.
“I think the first thing I feel is disgust, because I know that somewhere, somebody is signing off on something that they have no relation to,” Kyra O’Guinn said.
Her 3-year-old daughter, Devine, is part of the program. She called the denial of funding “baffling.”
“They don’t know nobody who has ever been in a situation that we have been in these communities and in these zip codes,” O’Guinn said.
O’Guinn, like so many other parents, demanded answers as to why funding for this Head Start program – which HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. said earlier this year would be protected – has been denied.
Barring a reversal, this could be the end of Head Start at Focus: Hope.
Roberson says the denial of federal funding will only affect Head Start, and there will be no disruption to Focus: Hope’s Machinist Training and Food programs.
She also insists that this will lead to a restructuring of the Head Start program, leaving the status of the more than 100 people who work for the program in limbo.
“Focus: Hope has been in this community since well beyond my years,” O’Guinn said. “ It has helped my grandmother, my mother, and me. Now that I’m a mother, I’m very disheartened by it.”