#FarmworkerFamilies

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
4 min

Maria’s Excellent Adventure

Maria was one of the first farmworkers to apply for DACA, which would allow her to travel outside of the U.S. with Advance Parole. Twenty-three-year-old Maria Sanchez Martinez is the former Vice President of East Coast Migrant Head Start Project’s Policy Council. In August of 2012, she was one of the first farmworkers to submit an application for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which has allowed her to lawfully work in the U.S. and consequently, has improved th

U.S. Representative Mike Kelly Visits ECMHSP Center in Pennsylvania

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

U.S. Representative Mike Kelly Visits ECMHSP Center in Pennsylvania

Sister Diane Rabe is the Director of Child Development Programs at the Saint Benedict Center. This is her story about the visit of U.S. Representative Mike Kelly. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” — John Maxwell On Wednesday, October 19, U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) visited the Saint Benedict Center, the ECMHSP delegate agency in Erie, Pennsylvania. Leonor Saldaña, the center’s Policy Committee President and member of the ECMHSP Po

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

ECMHSP Steps on to the Red Carpet

Immigration Film Festival of Greater Washington, a three-day festival featuring more than twenty films highlighting both the plight and the contributions of recent immigrants to the United States. The festival aims to put faces on immigrants and tell the stories of global immigration through film, the most popular of media. Last June, we wrote a blog post to celebrate Immigrant Heritage Month in which we debut the short documentary, “Para Los Niños” (For the Children). Filmma

Improving Healthcare Service Models for Migrant Families

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

Improving Healthcare Service Models for Migrant Families

Mercedes Hernández is the Child and Family Health Manager at East Coast Migrant Head Start Project. This is her experience at this year’s East Coast Migrant Stream Forum. Last week, ECMHSP was invited to participate at the East Coast Migrant Stream Forum. This year’s forum took place on October 13-15, 2016 at the Deauville Beach Resort in Miami, Florida. Mercedes Hernández, the Child and Family Health Manager at East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, poses with presenter Rica

Enhancing Our Work Through Self-Assessment

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
5 min

Enhancing Our Work Through Self-Assessment

Preschool teacher Kerry Cormier stands with QA Manager Beth Zinkand and CEO Dr. Jose Villa. Last week, East Coast Migrant Head Start Project completed its administrative self-assessment – the final phase of its annual self-assessment. When the Head Start program was created 50 years ago, the early childhood experts who developed the program understood how difficult it would be to provide high-quality early childhood education in impoverished communities. For that reason, the

California’s New Law on Overtime Pay for Farmworkers

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

California’s New Law on Overtime Pay for Farmworkers

Farmworker parents work through our ECMSHP Policy Council to create advocacy tools for the farmworker community, including videos. In October of 2012, migrant farmworker parents whose children attend an East Coast Migrant Head Start Project center developed a farmworker bills of rights. The farmworker bill of rights included many rights that other workers take for granted, such as the right to work for farmers who did not try to deceive OSHA inspectors and the right to access

OHS Announces New Head Start Program Performance Standards

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

OHS Announces New Head Start Program Performance Standards

On September 1, the Office of Head Start published the final updates to the Head Start Program Performance Standards, which describe what is needed to deliver comprehensive, high-quality individualized services to support the school readiness and healthy development of children from low-income families. According to OHS, the new standards announced last week are the first comprehensive revision of the Head Start Program Performance Standards since they were originally publish

ECMHSP Welcomes Senators Kaine and Warner’s Staff to the Virginia Eastern Shore

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

ECMHSP Welcomes Senators Kaine and Warner’s Staff to the Virginia Eastern Shore

ECMSHP welcomes visitors from Sen. Kaine and Sen. Warner’s DC office in our Parksley Head Start center. On Thursday, August 25, East Coast Migrant Head Start Project welcomed Karishma Merchant (from Senator Tim Kaine’s Washington, DC office) and Lauren Marshall (from Senator Mark Warner’s Washington DC office) to our Head Start centers on the Virginia Eastern Shore. Karishma and Lauren had reached out to ECMHSP so that they could learn more about the important work that we d

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

The Long and Winding Road

Yesterday, shortly after sunrise, East Coast Migrant Head Start Project opened our doors to farmworker families in Jennings, Florida. We couldn’t be happier. Our newest Head Start center was conceived a number of years ago when our community assessment work demonstrated a desperate and unmet need for Head Start services to migrant farmworker families in Hamilton County, Florida. There, migrant farmworker families arrive in early May to harvest tomatoes before migrating away t

Guest Post: Education Starts with the Very Young

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

Guest Post: Education Starts with the Very Young

Dr. David Conde is the President for North America of the Chamber of the Americas. He currently serves as the President of the ECMHSP Board of Directors and is a contributing writer for La Voz Bilingüe. This is his latest article. For me, my early educational journey was a messy business with many stops and starts as we traveled the migrant and seasonal work route around the country. We could not start the school until well into the academic year and had to leave early to sta

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

Guest Post: In the Interest of Children

Holly Strait is the Senior Director Child & Family Development Services at PathStone Corporation. This is her experience at the Field of Dreams Head Start Center’s opening day. On July 12, the Adams County Family Development Field of Dreams Head Start center opened on a hot and humid day to 24 appreciative farmworker families. Parents were comfortable leaving their children in a familiar setting as they headed off to pick, pack, and process peaches. Farmworkers enroll their c

Continuity and Stability for our Mobile Families

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

Continuity and Stability for our Mobile Families

Blueberry harvest in North Carolina. Photo credit: Morgan McCloy, NPR This morning, NPR aired a story on North Carolina’s blueberry harvest, “For Pickers, Blueberries Mean Easier Labor But More Upheaval.” The report focused on a migrant farmworker family who followed the harvest from Florida to North Carolina, and then continued on to Michigan. Benito Santiago spoke with reporter Dan Charles about his family’s journey. His family made the difficult and often risky travel to f

Guest Post: Success Doesn’t Fall from the Sky

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
4 min

Guest Post: Success Doesn’t Fall from the Sky

Misael Rangel is part of the 2016 NMSHSA Summer Internship Program and as a child was enrolled in the ECMHSP Fort Pierce Head Start center in Florida. This is his story. My name is Misael Rangel. I was born and raised in Fort Pierce, Florida. I am the son of Teresa and Ignacio Rangel, who immigrated to this country in search of a better life by escaping the poverty of their hometown in Guanajuato, Mexico. When they arrived in Florida, my father began work picking oranges. Aft

Open doors and smiling faces at Parksley

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
1 min

Open doors and smiling faces at Parksley

LaShundra Weeks is the Center Director for the Parksley Migrant Head Start Center in Virginia. This is her experience at the center’s opening day. The secret to success is planning. Parents came to the center before opening day for orientation and to meet teachers. After much planning and preparation, ECMHSP’s Parksley Head Start Center, located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, finally opened its doors on June 28, for yet another season. In this region, migrant farm laborers

ECMHSP Celebrates Immigrant Heritage Month

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

ECMHSP Celebrates Immigrant Heritage Month

Welcome.us and other organizations, celebrities, and community leaders in celebrating the contributions and diversity our immigrant communities bring to the United States. ECMHSP offers Head Start services to farmworker families, which often are immigrants, through centers located from Lake Okeechobee in Florida to Lake Erie in Pennsylvania. Our immigrant families come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti. They speak Spanish, Creole, and Mixteco. They share family m

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

US Supreme Court Divided on DAPA/DACA+

Today, the eight Justices on the United States Supreme Court divided equally on the question of whether President Obama had the legal authority to implement immigration relief for undocumented individuals who are the parents of United States-born children and for an expanded group of individuals under the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program. This non-decision decision by the Supreme Court means that hard-working, law-abiding individuals will continue

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

NMSHSA’s 8th Public Policy Forum

Last week, the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association (NMSHSA) held its 8th annual Public Policy Forum in Washington, DC on June 6. ECMHSP staff and parents from the Policy Council advocated for the needs of the farmworker families served by our centers along the East Coast throughout the forum and on Capitol Hill. On June 4, prior to the forum, parents from Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs from across the country received training on how to participate

ECMHSP Opens Center in St. Helena Island

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
2 min

ECMHSP Opens Center in St. Helena Island

St. Helena Island’s farmworker families drop off their children at the center. This week East Coast Migrant Head Start Project opened its heart, and its Head Start center, to migrant farmworker families in St. Helena Island, South Carolina. The opening of each of our centers requires a lot of planning and hard work. This is particularly true for our centers that serve a highly mobile population and are open for a short duration – like the St. Helena Island center, which can

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

Farmworker Families Need DAPA & DACA+

More than 4,000 people wait outside of the Supreme Court building during the oral arguments of DAPA and DACA+. This morning the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on two of President Obama’s important executive actions providing administrative relief from immigration enforcement: Deferred Action for Parents of American-born Children (DAPA) and the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA+). The case will determine the future of millions of undoc

Guest Post: More than a Center, it’s a Refuge

ECMHSP Website

Nov 3, 2021
3 min

Guest Post: More than a Center, it’s a Refuge

Ted Hoffman is the architect who has been building Head Start centers with ECMHSP for the past 12 years. These are his thoughts. I was asked to contribute some words and photos about the new Jennings Head Start Center I am working with ECMHSP to build in northern Florida. The work is shaping up nicely, but until it’s done, the photos can be rather uninteresting. Instead, I thought I would try to describe more generally my goals and thoughts as I design new centers for ECMHSP

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