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The
generosity of community partners…has enabled us to create a
wonderfully inviting and unique learning environment for
young children.
—Cara Guerrieri,
Child and Family Opportunities
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Pre-schooler
Ashley Porter, carrying the Child and Family Opportunities’
capital campaign “Piggy Bank,” visits Edward Hennessey, CEO
and president of Machias Savings Bank, to collect the bank’s
$5,000 donation for the new Ellsworth Early Care and
Education Center. Young Ashley attends the Machias Early
Care and Education Center and was escorted to the bank by
her Center Director Betty Reynolds. The Machias center is a
sister center of the new Ellsworth program. Ashley is the
daughter of Kristen and Brenda Porter of Cutler. |
ELLSWORTH—Child and Family Opportunities has welcomed Machias
Savings Bank to the corps of businesses and community members
that have pledged support for its new Early Child Care and
Education Center at 18 Avery Lane.
The bank’s
$5,000 donation has helped boost the agency’s capital campaign
to the $200,000 mark, just $100,000 short of its overall goal.
According
Cara Guerrieri, the agency’s board chair, “Our board would like
to publicly thank Machias Savings Bank for its donation to our
project. The generosity of community partners, like Ed Hennessey
and Machias Savings Bank, has enabled us to create a wonderfully
inviting and unique learning environment for young children in
the greater Ellsworth community.”
The new
facility, currently under construction, is expected to open in
June. It will have six classrooms devoted to the agency’s Head
Start programs for children of ages six weeks to five years,
along with educational child care placements offered year round.
In
addition to the classrooms, other features include two large
playgrounds, a full service kitchen and an administrative wing
to house office spaces for the agency’s 20 administrative staff,
a parent resource library and a conference room.
Child and
Family Opportunities has been providing Head Start and child
care programs in Hancock and Washington counties since 1970. The
agency has always relied on rented or leased spaces in Ellsworth
and the new facility represents the first permanent home for the
agency’s center of operations.
Last fall
in Machias, Child and Family Opportunities responded to that
community’s need for expanded Head Start and child care
programming by opening a four-classroom center there.
“For
several years, we heard from parents enrolled in our Machias
Head Start program that they needed child care in addition to
our Head Start programs,” said Jeanie Mills, the agency’s
executive director.
The agency
turned a portion of an old wreath factory into a full-service
child care center with one classroom for infants and toddlers
and two for preschoolers. Renamed the Machias Early Care and
Education Center,
it has a full enrollment and a waiting list.
For more
information on the capital campaign and applications for the
Head Start, Early Head Start and educational child care
programs, call Enrollment Specialist Luann Corkins at 667-2995.
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