Dozens of families in the Western U.P. are without their regular childcare this week.
The Gogebic Ontonagon County Head Start is temporarily closed due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
Head Start is a 100% federally funded program with locations all across the country.
It primarily focuses on three- and four-year-olds from low-income families.
Renee Pertile is the director of Head Start and Early Head Start program for Gogebic, Ontonagon Community Action Agency.
They have three locations in the Western U.P., including Ironwood.
“We provide three meals a day. We provide school readiness services. We provide support for the families with anything they might need. That could include transportation, gas, getting their rent paid, getting a new furnace in their home. Then we also provide health services for the children, making sure that they're up to date on their well child checks and their immunizations,” said Pertile.
Every year, Head Start programs need to submit a grant application to the federal government to receive its operational funding for the year.
The timing of when each program submits its application varies.
In the case of Gogebic and Ontonagon Counties they need to get it in by August 1st and they’re supposed to receive the funding by November 1st. But because of the ongoing federal government shutdown there’s no one in the Office of Head Start to process and approve their application.
“We don't have funding to pay staff, and then we don't have funding to pay our bills and keep our doors open,” said Pertile.
The Gogebic & Ontonagon Head Start Program is hardly the only one that is temporarily closed.
The National Head Start Association warned that an estimated 140 programs across 41 states would need to stop services as of Nov. 1.
Last week, Governor Tony Evers announced two Head Start programs in southern and eastern Wisconsin would also need to temporarily stop services because of the government shutdown.
Pertile says they’ve been trying to connect families to other resources to help them during the temporary closure.
A local daycare center is taking on some of the kids as well as a couple staff members to cover the increase in kids. Pertile says the church where one of their sites is located has been talking to parishioners about fundraising for gift cards for staff and families that may need food and other things.
Pertile also worked to compile a list of local resources for food as SNAP benefits have been delayed.
“The difficult piece to that is, once the government reopens, that doesn't mean that our program will be able to reopen the next day or the next week,” said Pertile.
Pertile says they’ll still have to wait for the Office of Head Start to process theirs and all the other grants that have been delayed.
“There's the potential that that could take 1,2, 3 weeks. We don't really know,” she said.
Pertile says they’ll keep families updated as they have more information about when they can reopen. Families will not need to re-enroll.
