Lynn receives $1.7M federal grant

LYNN – Eighty pregnant women, infants and toddlers are expected to benefit from a new Lynn-based program that on Wednesday received $1.7 million in federal funding.U.S. Rep. John F. Tierney, a Salem Democrat, unveiled the grant to John Mogielnicki, executive director of Lynn Economic Opportunity (LEO). The funds will help the community by providing free child development and family support services for disadvantaged expectant mothers and families with young children, the congressman said.LEO will receive the funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through its Early Head Start (EHS) initiative. The program assists low-income pregnant women and families with infants and toddlers under the age of three.”The EHS program proposed by LEO will ensure that new and young families in Lynn have a solid foundation on which to build their futures,” Tierney said. “This grant is not only a significant investment in the future of those families, but also in the future of the community at-large.”According to Mogielnicki, LEO’s EHS program offers a combination service that brings staff into family homes every week to support child development and nurture the parent-child relationship. The program will also provide opportunities for participating parents and their children to come together as a group for learning, discussion and socialization in a center-based setting.”LEO has for years applied for a grant to offer an EHS program and we are overjoyed that we are now able to provide this wonderful and much-needed assistance to the community,” Mogielnicki said. “The program will serve 80 pregnant women, infants and toddlers up to three years of age. This new service adds another dimension to our existing child care programs for children ages three to 12 years and is a natural extension of LEO’s mission and purpose. The program will employ two child care models, home-based and center-based care, which will allow us to tailor programs to each family.”The Department of Health and Human Services’ EHS initiative was launched in 1995 with the principle purpose of awarding grants to agencies who propose programs that encompass the full range of a family’s needs from pregnancy to a child’s third birthday.