Lost and Found on Head Start Day

By C.J. Hirschfield

Editor’s note: On April 20, Children’s Fairyland will host Head Start Day for Oakland Head Start children and their families. We’re grateful for support from Rogers Family Foundation, City of Oakland Head Start and – for chartered bus transportation – the Quest Foundation. To give you an idea of what Head Start Day is like, we’re republishing this column from 2011.

Last Friday we welcomed more than 2,000 Head Start kids and their family members. We were part of their Week of the Young Child Traffic, Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Fair in Oakland.

And what a day it was.

When we saw the line stretching for blocks just before opening time, we knew that, contrary to our predictions, everyone was going to arrive at once. But Team Fairyland was ready.

Head Start’s mission is to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children by providing educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to low-income kids and their families. One of the longest-running programs to address systemic poverty in the United States, it began as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, with Sargent Shriver’s Office of Economic Opportunity launching Head Start in 1965. As of 2005, more than 22 million preschool-age children had participated. In 1968, Head Start began funding a program that would eventually be called “Sesame Street,” operated by the Carnegie Corporation Preschool Television Project.

Lady Bird Johnson attends the ceremony for National Head Start Day, June 30, 1965. Photo via Obama White House Archives.

For a lot of the kids who came on Friday, Fairyland was their first experience with rides, puppet shows, live performance and barnyard animals. Their excitement was contagious. Their excitement also meant that they wanted to be everywhere and do everything at once – resulting in a near-record of temporarily lost kids and parents. Eighteen times that day Fairyland’s intrepid staff re-connected family members: it seemed like every time we turned around, someone else was lost.

Five-year-old Damares was the kind of lost kid we love. She wasn’t scared, and she gave a great description of her mom. When you’re dealing with people who are lost, any identifying clue is useful. In the case of Damares’s mom, it was the fact that she was wearing a black hat. As we said over and over that day, “The family has been reunited.”

A happy Head Start family rides the Jolly Trolly (2016 photo).

Kenneth’s grandfather came to us looking for his 4-year-old charge. We’ve noticed that grandparents tend to be much mellower than parents about lost children. They’ve been there and done that, and are therefore able to keep their cool. His grandfather told us that Kenneth had close-cropped hair and was wearing a red T-shirt, Phat jeans and white tennis shoes. We all fanned out for the search. I had no idea what Phat jeans are, so I focused more on the white shoes. Because guess what? Tons of the kids were wearing red t-shirts given out by Head Start.

I found someone who could have been Kenneth, but he was on stage, joyfully singing along with Asheba, our performer of the day. Asheba gave a look as if to say. “Do you want me to stop the show?” and I mouthed “No.” I radioed the question, “Does Kenneth have a long sleeve shirt under his t-shirt?” The answer was no, so I was back on the hunt.

All of a sudden two kids shot by me at top speed, right by the Owl and the Pussycat set. One of them matched the description. “Kenneth?” I said. Kenneth looked at me the way kids do when they know they’ve been busted. When I took his hand to walk him back to his grandpa, he managed to hide behind me. I was told he was smiling, though.

Samba fun (2016 Head Start Day).

Kenneth’s grandfather wasn’t angry. We don’t like it when parents or caretakers get angry when they’re reunited with their kids, even though we know it’s probably a reaction triggered by fear more than anything else.

The day went by quickly, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Cotton candy and toy pinwheels were the items of choice for the kids. When the day had ended, Team Fairyland was tired but happy. We know that kids need educational, health and nutritional services. But we specialize in the social side of life, and based on the interactions we saw between the kids and their parents and caregivers that day, I’d say that we gave them a bit of a head start on happiness.

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C.J. Hirschfield  has served for 15 years as executive director of Children's Fairyland, where she is charged with the overall operation of the nation's oldest storybook theme park.