Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot Engel announced the awarding of a $539,708 grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services for Head Start of Rockland, a Nyack-based institution which helps families with nutrition, health and family services and education. The funding was made available thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Rep. Engel said, “This grant will help the Head Start program continue to benefit the approximately 800 pre-school children and more than 80 infants and toddlers currently aided by the program. Head Start does a great service to the families of Rockland County who are in need of assistance. I am very pleased to help play a part in expanding their reach so that more children can benefit in the future.”

Among the programs at Head Start of Rockland are:

• Head Start and Early Head Start, federally-funded programs providing pre-school education, nutrition, health and family services for low-income children, ages birth to five and their families.
• Early Head Start, a program which serves low-income families who have children in Head Start of Rockland. It also provides New York State-approved special education services for preschool children, including evaluation and assessment, therapy and integrated classroom programming at sites in Nyack, Spring Valley and Haverstraw.

“Grants, such as this one, which invests in early education will not only strengthen our commitment to teaching our next generation of leaders, but will help our long-term economy by providing our children and grandchildren with the skills they need to compete in the 21st Century,” said Rep. Engel. “I want to thank President Obama for having the foresight to include in ARRA such funding which addresses our need to improve early education for children and their families,” added Rep. Engel.