NHSA

"1965 was a good year," recalls Kelly Cederholm, Head Start alum and current Head Start Teacher of The Year. "I was a barefoot, pony-tailed, shy little girl and someone told my parents of a new program that was coming to town. It was the year that Head Start would begin all over the country, and I was a part of the first class ever in New Hampshire!"

I was born and raised in Carrizo Springs, TX, a small, close-knit town an hour north of the US-Mexico border. Since before I was born my parents and their families would migrate up north 1,400 miles and work the sugar beet fields near Wahpeton, ND. My father’s parents and siblings would migrate every summer since he was 6 years old. Growing up in a migrant household was tough at times. Both of my parents finished High School but decided not to further their education so they could care for their family.

How do you you become a doctor? For some, like Latifa Sage Silski, you attend Head Start! "I remember only having peas and carrots to eat,” Latifa said, recalling her time before Head Start. “We would move from place to place. Then finally, one day we were staying at my dad’s friend’s house and there was a Head Start program nearby. My mom enrolled me.”

According to her mother, little Marina Fradera often cried when her mother would pick her up from the Goddard Riverside Head Start center in New York City, because she didn't know if she would be able to go back to the special place she loved so very much.

As a young family with many obstacles to overcome, my parents knew that they wanted to give their four daughters every advantage that was never afforded to them. So they enrolled each of us in the local Head Start program.

Aida Conroy, a Head Start alum, is currently a 2013 Teach For America corps member teaching at Casa Infantil, a Head Start center of Casa Central in her family’s neighborhood in Chicago.

Yesenia Calderon was born in North Carolina to parents who migrated to the United States in the hopes of a better life for their children. Every year her mother and father spent June through November working in tobacco, potato, tomato, cucumber and cotton farms. At the end of November, Yesenia and her siblings would pack all of their belongings and move down to Florida for the orange season.

In honor of Head Start’s 50th Anniversary and Head Start Awareness Month, the National Head Start Association will be highlighting Head Start alumni each weekday in October. We will begin the month with Head Start’s youngest learners and conclude the celebration with the Head Start Class of 1965. As the month progresses, these alumni stories will exemplify the short-term and long-term benefits Head Start has provided for our nation’s most vulnerable children and families for the past 50 years. 

Louie Neptune is a curious five-year-old who attends Head Start at the Passamaquoddy Head Start Program in Pleasant Point, Maine. His mother, Tina Downing is a tribal council member, an engaged parent and a volunteer in her son’s Head Start classroom. “I’ve decided I’m going to be a cop when I grow up,” Louie told his mom. “ Actually, I want two jobs. I want to be a cop and a tow truck driver, so I can arrest them and then tow their car away.”