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Head Start History
In January of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared “The War on Poverty” in his State of the Union speech. The War on Poverty program was lead by Sargent Shriver, who was appointed by Johnson. In 1964, President Johnson and Shriver assembled a panel of experts to draw up a program to help communities meet the needs of disadvantaged preschool children.
In 1965, the Office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program designed to help break the “cycle of poverty” by providing preschool children of low income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs. Western Community Action hosted a summer program that year in the southwestern part of Minnesota. Since that summer, Head Start at Western Community Action has grown from an eight-week demonstration project to serve, in 2011, 225 children through a number of program options operating.
