Head Start Gives Old School A Fresh Start
Eighteen months ago, Coeur d’Alene’s Harding Elementary was a boarded relic with graffiti on its red bricks and dead weeds in its playground.
Now, two young trees in the barren yard reach spindly branches toward the sky. Sun shines through windows on pre-schoolers, parents learning to care for their infants, parents learning to read.
“We wanted a center where people could belong,” says Doug Fagerness, with a tender look at the saplings he says signify Harding’s new life as a family center. “As a parent, I wish I’d had such a place.”
Doug’s quiet crusade for family unity began in the late 1960s. He left the country disillusioned during wartime, but returned when someone fingered him as American in a European crowd and accused him of killing babies in Vietnam.
“I realized I had to come back, help change things by moving one grain of sand at a time,” he says softly.
He took a job as a classroom aide in Kootenai County’s Head Start program in 1975 to learn more about his 2-year-old son. But he found Head Start’s emphasis on early childhood education and family involvement exactly the strategy he supported to improve the country.
Doug envisioned Head Start directing a sort of community center with parent training, information on child care and education, gatherings, recreation. But Head Start had no permanent home to establish as a center.
Until 1994. Empty Harding Elementary was run down after 60 years of kids trampling its linoleum and slamming its doors. But it was solidly built and in a downtown neighborhood off the tourist track. Head Start made its move.
Now, the Harding Family Center plays host to chili feeds, dances and classes for all ages. Doug’s an administrator and plans soft grass outside for toddlers, play equipment for big kids, an outdoor reading area shaded by a canopy of trees and a border of plum trees and vines to shut out the street.
“I want people to come here and learn something,” Doug says, his gentle voice full of excitement. “And I want them to leave full.”
Touring teens
The 15 Japanese high school students coming to Coeur d’Alene this summer don’t expect anything but beds, food and kindness.
Donna Patterson-Udell says the kids will stay four weeks. They’ll study English most mornings and take tours most weekday afternoons. But they’ll need some friendly families to bunk with nights and play with on weekends.
Want to add some Eastern culture to your home? Call Donna at 667-0347.
Parlor tricks
Abracadabra didn’t work for Sandpoint’s Unicorn Theater Players, so the group is begging. It’s staging “Steel Magnolias” April 18-27 and needs an authentic beauty parlor for the set. That means styling chairs, a manicure table, shampoo dispensers, etc.
This cast plans to “do” hair right on stage. If you can help out with a loan of equipment, call 263-5943 or 265-5773. Your chair could end up a star…
High aspirations
Coeur d’Alene Christian School kids want to see how much a million is. But they’re too smart to collect a million paper clips. They’re collecting a million coins.
The money they raise will help their ever-growing school. Brother, can you spare a dime? Drop it off at the Coeur d’Alene Christian School on the corner of Fourth and Hanley.
C-mail
Coeur d’Alene’s Nancy Sue Wallace collects clothes her kids’ friends leave at her house and mails them back to their owners. Her kids think that’s weird. What do you do that makes eyes roll?
Confess your quirks to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814, fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo