East Coast Migrant Head Start Project

H&F's main philosophy in all their Head Start experience is to create not only safe, appropriate, and licensable space but also to make the spaces bright, hopeful, and welcoming. Working mainly with two large central agencies, RCMA, and the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, H&F has built with conventional construction, modulars, renovated existing buildings, and a combination of all building types.

Head Start Centers are a specialized building type, much different than private sector day care centers, even high end for -profit operations. For one thing, Head Start Centers are not just baby sitting endeavors but a whole panoply that looks at the whole child experience: learning, playing, social and intellectual development. Located in mostly rural areas usually near where farmworkers live, especially the migrant centers which are open for about 6 to 8 months a year, Head Start Centers become more than a place for farmworker children, they become a symbol, a safe place where, unlike in most parts of the United States where they travel, a place that respects their work and family culture. They are a beacon for families that desperately need one.