“Head Start helped me so much. I feel very blessed to have gotten hooked up with them,” Lee said. “They gave me support and advice, and they taught me how to raise kids,” she added. “I was 19 when my first child was born, and I never had any role models. I was raised in a dysfunctional family of alcoholism and violence, with four different stepfathers. It can be a never-ending cycle if you don’t try to stop it. I wanted a better life for my kids.”

To help her accomplish that goal, Lee attended psychologist-run parenting classes. She said she “would never have gone to something like that if it hadn’t been for Head Start.”.

Lee also became involved in her Head Start program’s policy council and volunteered regularly in the classroom and on field trips. Then, after Johnathan, her youngest, graduated from Head Start, she was offered a part-time Teacher’s Assistant position. She went on to receive her Child Development Associate credentials from the University of Kansas in 1985 and become a Team Teacher before moving into the position of Early Head Start Office Specialist in 1989.

"Head Start was like a family."