The September 25, 1995 newspaper report of the
Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer on the
Audubon Area Family Development Center
Grand Opening and Celebration
in Owensboro, Kentucky on September 24, 1996
| |
|---|
 |
The scan at the left shows the report as it appeared on page one of the Region section of the Owensboro newspaper
The caption under the photo: "Quality child care is so critical to parents across the nation," said Carol Rasco, right, President Clinton's top domestic policy advisor. Rasco spoke before the opening Tuesday afternoon of the Harry Smith Child Care Center. Rasco toured the facility, where she met caregiver Susan Jenkins, 45, who is holding 7-month-old Ariq Lawrence.
The pull-quote in the body of the article reads: "It means everything to me to be able to get my career started and to have such a wonderful place to take my kids."
--Tammy Hayes, resident of Harry Smith Apartments
Following is the text of the newspaper article written by Greg Kocher of the Messenger-Inquirer staff.
Clinton adviser visits center
Affordable child care is among keys to welfare reform law, Rasco says |
Carol Rasco smiled broadly as she watched a group of giggling preschoolers do the "Macarena" dance. The youngsters particularly enjoyed jumping before starting the hand movements and hip-shaking all over again.
"I take lessons from Al Gore, so of course I can't do it that well," said Rasco, who is President Clinton's top domestic policy adviser.
Rasco was in Owensboro on Tuesday for the official opening of a renovated child-care center in the Harry Smith Apartments, a public housing project on the city's west side.
The child-care center, which actually opened Sept. 16, provides low-income parents in the Harry Smith complex and surrounding neighborhood with affordable child care while they look for work or train for jobs.
It's that kind of "workfare" that's at the heart of the just-signed welfare reform law, Rasco told 120 listeners at a noontime luncheon at Audubon Area Community Services.
"That every parent must be either gainfully employed or enrolled in an education program in order to participate in your centers is exactly what we're trying to do if you cut away all the rhetoric in the new welfare reform bill," Rasco said.
"In so many ways the national agenda must be about grass-roots efforts," said Rasco, an Arkansas native who heads the president's Domestic Policy Council.
"Solutions to some of our most serious problems really are best found at the local level, with support of the appropriate type from government. You need to remind both yourselves and us of that."
The Harry Smith center — named for Owensboro's mayor from 1938 to 1941, who was an advocate for housing for the poor — was made possible by a collaborative effort of the Owensboro Housing Authority, United Way, Rolling Heights Family Development Advisory Council and Audubon Area Community Services.
The brightly colored Harry Smith center has a staff of 12 that helps 29 children from 20 families, said Director Sonja Jewell.
Two mothers said the Harry Smith site is crucial to their goals of an education and self-sufficiency.
"It means everything to me to be able to get my career started and to have such a wonderful place to take my kids," said Tammy Hayes.
Hayes lives in the Harry Smith Apartments and attends adult education courses at Longfellow Education Center. She plans to enroll at Owensboro Community College, where she would like to enter a new law enforcement program and then eventually join the Kentucky State Police.
Hayes said the center provides a number of activities for her two sons, Briley, 2, and Patrick, 5 months.
"They finder-paint. They teach them about germs. They teach manners at the table. They teach them songs, games," Hayes said.
Billie Rudd, who lives about a block away from the center, said she appreciates that her three children — Katlin, 4, Cage, 3, and Cody, 5 months — can be in the same building.
Like Hayes, Rudd attends classes at Longfellow Education Center and plans to enter OCC in January.
The Harry Smith site is modeled after the Rolling Heights Family Development Center, a nationally accredited center on Owensboro's east side.
Rasco also visited the Rolling Heights Center and spoke with several parents during a closed session about why its programs work for them.
"The most heartening thing was to hear in the actual words of the mothers and the people working there that what I read on paper was really coming true," Rasco said in an interview.
"Clearly, the case here is that parents are feeling success, and that these parents feel they are being given a real opportunity to move from welfare to work, with the kind of supports they need to make it real."
Go to other Audubon Area pages...
For a break out of services rendered through all AACS programs, go to the 1995-96 Agency Leadership, Programs and Services Summary
Return to Audubon Area's Home Page || "Marketing" Page. Audubon's Marketable Services: How the agency does what the public says it wants and needs.
RonLogsdon@aol.com