By DAVID A. MANN
SELLERSBURG — Editor’s note: This is part two of a six-part series on stimulus money, allocated through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, being spent in Clark County. Look for a story about local police agencies’ spending Wednesday.
It used to be Skip Jack’s — a restaurant that served seafood to Sellersburg residents.
Now, with a bit of painting, new floors, bathroom work and thousands in federal stimulus dollars, it’s a place of learning for children of low-income families.
Renovating the building, along North Indiana Avenue, from an eatery to a Head Start facility is just one of the ways that Community Action of Southern Indiana, or CASI, has used the nearly $2 million it has received under the federal government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the stimulus package. The project was a part of a $36,000 award that also went toward playground equipment upkeep costs.
About 20 low-income children, between the ages of 3 and 5, attend the preschool program in Sellersburg. It had been operating out of Sellersburg Elementary School until 2007. However, when the school expanded its kindergarten class to a full-day program, Sellersburg’s Head Start class was forced to move to Jeffersonville, said Joy Shanks, who directs the program.
Shanks said the new facility was needed because many of the parents didn’t have a means of transporting their children to Jeffersonville four days per week.
Three jobs were created as a result of the Skip Jack’s project and another renovation project at Community Action’s Learning Plex.
Eleven more jobs are expected to be created with a separate $483,000 grant that the agency received for starting up an early Head Start program for pregnant women and children under the age of 3.
Shanks said that program has long been desired in Southern Indiana “so that parents can learn appropriate ways to train their children” prior to having them come into a classroom setting.
“We really want to get parents working with their children in the home,” she said. “It’s really for the parents and helps them in their child’s development.”
Six advocates will be hired to visit parents in the home. An education manager and a mental-health manager, a family advocate and an administrative assistant also will be added to the agency’s staff with the early Head Start program.
“We’ve been doing Head Start for 40-some years now and appreciate any additional components to work with low-income families,” said Fred Mitchell, executive director for CASI.
Rep. Baron Hill issued a press release on the grant.
“The Head Start program Community Action offers is vital to our community,” he said in the release. “I’m very pleased they have been selected to receive this rather significant grant, and I know the money will be well spent.”
JOBLESS AWARDS
Not all the grants that Community Action received actually created jobs. A $36,800 allocation — part of the same grant that covered the renovation project — paid for salary increases and fringe benefits for the Head Start staff.
Shanks justifies that by noting that Head Start teachers with a four-year degree start at just $13 per hour.
“Every little bit helps to encourage staff to stay in this business,” she said.
Another $55,000 was allotted to get the agency’s three family advocates — who work with parents on goals such as job skills and parental training — certified.
Shanks said the advocates don’t have to be certified in order to do their jobs. Despite that, two advocates — one has a bachelor’s degree in education, the other has one in health sciences — enrolled in a certification program from Western Kentucky University.
Stimulus dollars were used to send the other advocate — this one with a two-year degree — back to school at Sullivan University to work on her bachelor’s degree.
OTHER PROJECTS
Community Action doesn’t just run the county’s Head Start program. The largest federal allocation it received this year was a $1.3 million grant for a weatherization program for low-income families in Clark and Floyd counties.
Four auditors were hired under the program, said Phil Ellis, administrator of community development. They go into homes and find problem areas where energy is being lost. Inefficient water heaters and furnances, poor attic insulation or even a broken storm window could be the culprit, he said.
Contractors are then hired to fix the problems or replace the faulty appliances. Ellis estimates that between 12 and 16 workers have been hired as a result.
The weatherization began in November and seven homes have been completed. The agency hopes to have 212 done by May, now that several contractors have been selected.
“It’s a really great program,” Ellis said. “Hopefully the end result is to provide the families with some savings, but also to make them more comfortable.”
