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1965 – present
Founded: 1965, the year the federal Head Start program began. Two operators stood it up in Fort Wayne at once. The Allen County Economic Opportunity Council (ACEOC), organized in 1965 with William G. Williams among those who helped start it, ran Head Start as one of its eleven anti-poverty programs. In the same year Catholic Charities of the diocese instituted a Child Development Program whose first work was two summer Head Start programs, at St. Mary's and St. Peter's churches.
Course: The Catholic Charities program moved in 1978 into the former St. Hyacinth School building. ACEOC became Community Action of Northeast Indiana (CANI) in 1983 and Brightpoint in 2015; it remains the area's Head Start grantee — about 10.9 million dollars in federal funding in fiscal 2024 — serving Allen and five neighboring counties, with Early Head Start covering ages 0–3 from its headquarters at 227 E. Washington Blvd. Since the early 1990s Brightpoint has also rented classrooms in Congregation Achduth Vesholom's religious-school wing — the long-running "Temple Head Start" on what is now the Rifkin Campus at 5200 Old Mill Rd; the congregation's Thoughtful Thursdays food partnership with the program began in October 2010.
Fate: Operating. Head Start is the oldest continuously running early-childhood program in the city with a public record.
Sources:
- Brightpoint, institutional history and audited financial statements (FY2024).
- Catholic Charities, Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, centennial history (Child Development Program, 1965; St. Hyacinth, 1978).
- National Park Service, National Register nomination, Congregation Achduth Vesholom; templecav.org (Temple Head Start; Thoughtful Thursdays, 2010).