Phree to get a Head Start

I sat in a meeting the other day where it was projected that if the budget for PA gets passed as is, some 7,000 children across the state will no longer be able to attend Head Start. Head Start is a government funded childcare program for low income families. Add to that number another 1,000 staff members who will be out of work. If those numbers aren’t startling enough, easily add the two numbers and multiply them by 3. A potential 24,000 people will be impacted by this one part of the state budget. Where did I get the 3 from?
Well the way I see it, individuals are parts of systems. Every one of those 7,000 children are members of families. Every one of those 1,000 individuals are members of families. And het average size of families in America is 3 (ok, it’s .14 but I have never met a .14 of a person). So when you mess with the services and support provided to 8,000 you really impact at a minimum 24,000 people. I sat in a meeting and was told if the budget is passed 24,000 systems would be impacted. Twenty four thousand systems altered with a few strokes of a pen.
The meeting was sobering. I left and returned to my office thinking about the clients I serve, thinking about the kids I worked with as an undergraduate intern at a Head Start program in Philadelphia, thinking about my own family as my mother worked for Head start and my three youngest siblings attended Head Start. I thought about how my family would have been impacted by such a budget change. My mother would be out of work and one of my siblings would have been out of childcare. The seven of us would have struggled really hard to make things work. I would have had a different reality and I don’t know if it would have been one to keep bitterness and anger at bay long enough to still allow me to attend college, graduate school, and develop a brand that gets people are a part of systems. You can’t change a person without changing the system to which they belong.
That’s why at Phreedum we are so committed to helping organizations as they serve individuals, families, and communities. We believe in helping organizations that realize their clients are individuals who are parts of families, which create communities. We realize impacting 8,000 is really impacting 24,000.