FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 24, 2023
ADVOCAP, Inc. and Holy Family Catholic Community are excited to announce their partnership in relocating the ADVOCAP Head Start program to Sacred Heart School, located at 678 Western Avenue in Fond du Lac. Six classrooms will be occupied at Sacred Heart School serving three- to five-year-old Head Start and 4K children. Eligible households in the ADVOCAP Head Start Program will receive quality educational services for their children as well as health services, nutritional services, and wrap-around family development services.
“When ADOVCAP approached us about utilizing our Sacred Heart School for their Head Start program, we saw it as the perfect opportunity for the facility to be used to its full potential. While the school is used throughout the year for our Faith Formation programming, most days, the space was not used. Now, we will have children filling the classrooms throughout the school year, while still having the ability to provide our parishioners Faith Formation. It is a great way for us to fulfill our mission of serving not only our parishioners, but helping those throughout our community,” Holy Family Catholic Community Pastor, the Very Rev. Ryan Pruess, said.
“This is an amazing opportunity for our Head Start children and their families,” says Tanya Marcoe, Executive Director of ADVOCAP. “Our children will now have a fun, exciting and positive learning environment to allow for their educational and emotional growth. The classrooms are beautiful and being in an existing school makes the environment more conducive to learning. We are grateful for Holy Family Catholic Community, their partnership and working with us to make this happen.”
“This is an amazing opportunity for our Head Start children and their families."
Tanya Marcoe, ADVOCAP Executive Director
The Head Start program promotes the school readiness of children ages 3 to 5 from low-income families by enhancing their cognitive, social, and emotional development. Head Start programs provide a learning environment that supports children’s growth through language and literacy, general knowledge, physical development, and health, as well as social and emotional development.
ADVOCAP’s Head Start Director, April Mullins-Datko added that “Head Start plays a transformative role across two generations, helping families who are struggling with poverty and other socioeconomic challenges to achieve their goals for education, employment, and housing. The Head Start Advantage is the individual opportunity to thrive in a safe, stable, nurturing space that puts children and their families on the path to success in school, in work, and in life. We are so thankful for this opportunity to partner with Holy Family Catholic Community. Partnerships like the one with Holy Family allows ADVOCAP Head Start to provide this safe loving space for our community to grow and succeed.”
“We are thrilled to be partnering with ADVOCAP to provide their Head Start program a place for children to learn and grow in our Sacred Heart School. Head Start’s mission to prepare children from low-income families for school pairs well with that of our own, as we seek to serve those in need in our community just as our faith has taught us to do,” Holy Family Catholic Community Pastor, the Very Rev. Ryan Pruess, said.
ADVOCAP, a private non-profit community action agency, was founded in 1966 to fight poverty within our local communities of Fond du Lac, Winnebago and Green Lake Counties. ADVOCAP’s anti-poverty programs help low-income persons secure affordable housing, gain employment skills and training, start a small business and become self-employed, purchase a vehicle, volunteer at schools and daycares, become actively involved in their children’s learning, remain independent in their homes, obtain a nutritious meal, and reduce the amount of home energy costs.
