Some area residents are headed to First District of Arkansas Representative Rick Crawford's office in Mountain Home today at 2 p.m. as part of a national protest against automatic funding cuts to be made to the National Head Start Association. According to the Head Start website, nhsa.org, the protest, entitled "Stroll-In", is due to the sequestration in Congress which will force Head Start to cut programs and services. Head Start provides affordable child care to low income families with preschool children. The cuts could affect as many as 70,000 children across the nation.
Local hairstylist Susan Snyder, who has children enrolled in a Head Start program locally, says she initially heard about the cuts in a meeting at her children's school.
Snyder and her husband Derrick created a Facebook event called "Help us take a stand for Head Start Schools" in which over 100 people in the community were invited to participate in the protest. Snyder says it is likely petitions against the cuts will be on hand.
