EOC, Head Start opens new Long Beach facility

The Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County celebrated the grand opening of its state-of-the art Long Beach Head Start facility last Friday, which is set to serve a new wave of young children and their families in the city’s North Park neighborhood.

“Almost three years ago, we watched our one-story structure go down in a pile of rubble, for it had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy,” said Rev. Anita L. Shiva Kennedy, the EOC’s Head Start deputy executive director. “Today, we are standing proud as we let go of our past, and we are envisioning and embracing our future.”

The state-of-the-art elevated three-story building, at 1 East Pine St., is 16,000 square feet and features four large classrooms, one multi-purpose space, Smart Boards, staff offices and a fully enclosed rooftop playground and solar panel system. The $9.3 million facility — set to accommodate an expanded enrollment of 67 children and families — was fully funded by the Federal Office Administration for Children and Families Hurricane Sandy Emergency Relief Funds.

“The building is beautiful, and when the children enter the program…they’re going to get the nurturing they need and welcoming arms when they come in,” said Iris Johnson, chief executive officer for the EOC. “They’re going to get a true head start, and the outside is beautiful, but what’s going to happen on the inside is even more beautiful.”

Head Start, established by Congress in 1965, is a federally funded education program designed to meet the needs of low-income children and their families. It is the only national program of its kind that uses a comprehensive services approach to early childhood education, and consists of activities in art, language, math and science. Nutrition, health, social services as well as psychological and speech therapy are also provided. The Head Start program has served the Long Beach community since 1979, providing services for more than 2,300 families during that time, and on the same plot of land.

In addition to an upgrade in size and resources, the new facility was built with future storms in mind and features a strengthened foundation, 1.25-inch-thick glass and the ability to withstand winds up to 140 miles per hour, according to Universal Design and Construction management, a Nassau County minority-owned business who built the structure. Such winds would be significantly faster than those experienced during Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012, which topped out at 96 miles per hour on Long Island, according to the National Weather Service.

“The federal government has stepped up, and we at all levels of government need to take this as a reminder that investing in this community in this area is a priority, and it shouldn’t take a storm for us all to be doing this,” State Sen. Todd Kaminsky said. “Let us take this day to resolve that all children in our community are important, all deserve our government funds as an investment, and we have to be there every day for our future. Let’s use this as a throwing down of the gauntlet to challenge all of us to do more.”

The grand opening included a block party, which featured bounce houses, a face-painting station as well as food and ice cream. In addition to Kaminsky, other officials included U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice and members of the Long Beach City Council, who presented a proclamation to the EOC. Children from the Long Beach Head Start’s Class of 2016 took the stage to sing “We Are The World,” and a tour of the facility followed the ceremony.

 “This program truly is one of the greatest programs I think we can have in our society today because what it does is it levels the playing field for every single child,” Rice said. “The boardwalk is great, Long Beach has rebuilt bigger and better, but nothing stands more as a view to the future…than this building.”

 James Hodge, chair of the Martin Luther King Center’s board of directors, was a Head Start child years ago, and helped lead and fund the grand opening.

 “It means so much for the community to be out here, and I would like to thank the community for their support and their tenacity in wanting to see something here built bigger, stronger, smarter and safer,” he said. “…As a former student in 1979 when I first came through these doors, I’m excited to see that God has blessed this building to still be here and to be built the way it is.”