Coburn hosts “Family Fall Festival Feast” for head start families
ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Coburn United Methodist Church hosted an event for families of head start children in Muskingum County.
The Family Fall Festival Feast is a yearly event that gives parents with children in head start programs an opportunity to share a feast and explore what head start has to offer. Jennifer Mahoney is the Parent, Family, and Community Engagement Manager for Muskingum County head start programs. She said the event is free for the families and features special activities for the parents and children to enjoy.
“The children do a performance that they’ve prepared with their teachers for a couple of weeks beforehand. And then we have different stations with different activities and different community members that come to give information to our families.”
Many organizations and groups across the county came out to show support. Groups like Forever Dad, United Way, Buckeye Health, Hope to the Rescue, and Heartbeats were on hand to help with activities and share resources with parents.
“Our stations this year have some crafts from Zane State. Their child development program comes and does some crafts with them,” said Mahoney. “We provide our teachers and staff provide a literacy and a math program for them to continue their learning while they’re having fun here with their family.”
Muskingum County head start provides child-care services for low-income families in the area. While at the event the parents are able to learn more about the care their children receive and about other resources and programs available to them. Lila Fansler sits on the Policy Council Board for head start and has a young son in the program. She says the program is very helpful to families like hers.
“They tell us things that you would not know that are available to you. They help us with so much stuff. This year they’re doing…Dollar General has been donating stuff to them and they are doing an attendance award program where the more your kid is in class you get points to go and get things like toilet paper, paper towels, things like that that you really struggle with getting.”
The program is income based and by application. There are different programs available to families. The newest program, early head start, is for newborn to three years of age. And head start classes are for ages three to five. Some of the programs are half-day while others are full-day. You can visit Muskingum County Head Start on Facebook to learn more information.
