North State Journal: “A 50-year-old Head Start program has had a multi-generational impact on migrant farmworker families and their children.
Maria Garza, the CEO of the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project (ECMHSP), shared with North State Journal the impact of what the organization does and how it has made a “big difference” in the lives of migrant farmworker families.
ECMHSP is a nonprofit established in 1974 through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The organization has 43 campuses in ten states, including North Carolina, which provide “holistic, high-quality early childhood education services” for approximately 3,500 farmworker children “between 6 weeks to 6 years old.”
The organization does not receive state or local dollars but instead is funded mainly by the federal government. Federal grant funding in 2022-23 totaled nearly $80 million and in 2023-24 the group received grants totaling $71 million.”