THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409220436
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
A Pasquotank County program aiming to help more than 200 children whose families are on waiting lists for child-care subsidies will receive a grant to open access to day care, Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. announced Wednesday.
The Pasquotank County Partnership for Children was one of 12 new programs in 14 counties statewide chosen to participate in Smart Start, Hunt's initiative to bring child care, health care and other services to young children across the state.
Hunt made the announcement at a morning press conference in Raleigh.
``Smart Start will help families in Pasquotank County get the services they need for their children,'' Hunt said in press release. ``And Smart Start will ensure that those families are an integral part of the decision-making and planning process that brings those services to the community.''
Using state government as a catalyst, Smart Start brings together communities to focus on the needs of children. Local public-private partnerships develop programs designed to improve the quality of child care and to address health, transportation and other family needs.
Among the child-care and family issues the Pasquotank Partnership for Children hopes to address is the need for affordable, quality day care for families on waiting lists for subsidies. Expanding options for working families by encouraging child-care centers to provide evening, overnight or working care is another goal.
The program also hopes to boost the overall quality of care children receive by expanding educational opportunities for child-care teachers.
``Everybody in the community is really, really excited,'' said Lenora Jarvis-Mackey, president of the River City Community Development Corp., one of the many local groups that collaborated on the grant application. ``As with many communities in Northeastern North Carolina, we certainly need the resources.''
Pasquotank County will receive $697,627 of $14.8 million in grants available for the 14 counties. Grant allocations ranged from $339,661 for Avery County to more than $2.8 million awarded to Durham County, according to the Department of Human Resources, which oversees the grants.
Other eastern North Carolina counties chosen to participate in the program were Duplin, Edgecombe, Nash, Lenoir and Greene.
Senate leader Marc Basnight, who attended the press conference along with other legislative leaders, said Smart Start is just one of many state programs designed to reduce juvenile crime and its costs to society by helping children receive quality care and guidance when they are young.
``The cost to society, the financial costs of crime are tremendous,'' Basnight said. ``We're trying to reverse that in North Carolina, and Smart Start is one leg of that effort.''
Pasquotank County is the second Northeastern North Carolina county chosen for Smart Start. Halifax County was one of 18 counties selected for 12 programs last year in the first round of Smart Start grants.
To date, Smart Start grants have helped more than 10,000 children in 650 child-care centers by providing new equipment, helping to serve children with special needs and providing training for day-care teachers, state officials said. The program also has reached about 9,000 children with health services, like vision, hearing and dental screenings.
``Our first year of Smart Start has shown what we can do when we come together around our children to help them come to school healthy and ready to learn,'' Hunt said in a news release. by CNB