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REP. MIKE THOMPSON ANNOUNCES $3.4 MILLION HEAD START GRANT FOR COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP OF SONOMA COUNTY

April 28, 2014

WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5) today announced a $3,425,343 Head Start Grant for Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County. The funding will be used to provide Head Start and Early Head Start services to 552 children and their families at 12 center based sites throughout Sonoma County.

"Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County does outstanding work and I am proud to support them," said Thompson. "Their Head Start and Early Head Start programs help make sure all children have a foundation for future success."

"These investments help to assure that local Upstream Investment initiative's produce a more prosperous, healthy and safe community," said Tim F. Reese, Executive Director of Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County. "These services make life long changes in the trajectory of a child's life that provide significant return on investment in the local community."

Head Start is a federal program that promotes the school readiness of children ages birth to 5 from low-income families by enhancing their cognitive, social and emotional development. Head Start programs provide comprehensive services to enrolled children and their families, which include health, nutrition, social services and other services determined to be necessary by family needs assessments, in addition to education and cognitive development services.

For every dollar spent on Head Start, our country realizes almost nine dollars in benefits through participants' increased earnings, decreased welfare dependence and other factors.

Head Start was founded as part of Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty in 1965. Since then, Head Start has grown from an eight-week demonstration project to include full day/year services and numerous program options. Head Start has served over 31 million children and their families in urban and rural areas in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories.

The reauthorization of the Head Start Act in 1994 made it possible to establish Early Head Start as a program to serve infants and toddlers under the age of 3 and pregnant women. Early Head Start provides early, continuous, intensive and comprehensive child development and family support services to low-income infants, toddlers, pregnant women and their families.

Congressman Mike Thompson is proud to represent California's 5th Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma Counties. He is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Rep. Thompson is also a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and chairs the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Wine Caucus.

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Issues:Education