Head Start Money Lands in Monroe

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R) announced last Tuesday (Sept. 22), from East Stroudsburg, two federal Head Start awards for Monroe and Lackawanna counties. His release calls it over $200,000, but the two awards add up to $248,247.

The bigger share, $217,747, goes to Pocono Services for Families and Children. Executive Director Kristi Hammond says it will pay to resurface the playground at the Eugenia S. Eden Early Learning Center in East Stroudsburg and the parking lot at the Ramsey Center in Stroudsburg, plus upgrades to technology, cybersecurity, and financial management systems. The other $30,500 goes to the Agency for Community EmPOWERment (ACE) of NEPA for nutrition efforts, including breastfeeding pods and parent education, across northeastern Pennsylvania, so it is not specifically a Monroe County project.

Head Start serves children from birth to age five, according to the release, and a fresh playground surface is hard to argue with. Two things worth knowing: the release does not say which federal agency the money comes from, and it describes Bresnahan as announcing the awards, not securing them. The timing is the kind of thing both parties enjoy, about six weeks before Election Day, when Bresnahan faces Democrat Paige Cognetti in a race both national parties have targeted.