We are so very excited to share with you the announcement of a fantastic new partnership between ThorpeWood and the Head Start program for Frederick County. Over the course of 11 weeks, with one week off for Easter, ThorpeWood will welcome over 1,300 youth – ages three and four – to come to ThorpeWood and benefit from the glorious natural opportunities ThorpeWood has to offer.
Let’s delve a little deeper into this exciting partnership. As you may know, this week was the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty – famously declared by then President Lyndon B. Johnson. Out of this call to action, the Head Start program was born. Head Start is a federally funded program that is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. It is a program that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low income children and their families.
The goals of the Head Start program are to foster stable family relationships, enhance children’s physical and emotional well-being, and establish an environment to develop strong cognitive skills.
In May, 2012, the Frederick County YMCA became the new grantee for the Head Start program in Frederick County. As you all know, ThorpeWood has had a long standing relationship with the Frederick County YMCA – in fact, our Trail Run this past Fall raised money to help bring kids participating in Y sponsored programs up to ThorpeWood. Partnering with the Y to help facilitate their Head Start program seemed like a natural fit. And it was! These young children will begin arriving at ThorpeWood in March for an eleven week session and we are so excited to welcome them here!
In the meantime, we are working on the prep work that serving a group this size – especially a group of such young children – entails: trainings, equipment purchases, facility preparations for little people, are just a few of the items on our agenda over the next few weeks. Of course, we will try to keep you informed as the process continues and we work towards the first day these children come onto the mountain.
Welcome, Head Start! We are beyond excited to share our fantastic natural bounty with you!