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By the time he started dating her in the late 1970s, Jim Boscov’s future wife, Cindy, had already been teaching in a Berks County Intermediate Unit Head Start classroom for years.
Boscov quickly saw how dedicated Cindy was to her young 3-, 4- and 5-year-old students. He saw her buy classroom supplies with her own money. He saw her connect with not only the kids but their families as well.
One family in particular stood out.
Cindy developed a special relationship with a boy named Jimmy and his mother, Boscov told a crowd gathered at the new Helping Harvest Annex in downtown Reading last week.
Jimmy had behavioral problems and often fought with other students. One time he even punched his fist through a window.
Cindy and the rest of the staff at the Head Start program on South Sixth Street worked tirelessly with Jimmy. They provided him with counseling and support and created diversionary tactics for him.
Cindy had Jimmy in her class for three years, Boscov said. But her devotion to him didn’t end there.
She followed his path through elementary, middle and high school, watching as he got his anger under control and excelled at his studies. She watched as he became captain of his high school football team and graduated with honors.
And she watched as he headed of to the U.S. Naval Academy.
When Jimmy graduated from Annapolis, his mom and the Boscovs were the only ones invited to the ceremony, Boscov said, pausing as the emotion of the memory overtook him. That’s how much of an impact Jimmy’s first teacher had on him.
“Every teacher, you change the lives of the kids and, in turn, you change the lives of their families and of the community,” Boscov said.
Given his personal experience and the years his late wife devoted to the BCIU, it was fitting that Boscov shared Jimmy’s story during the Sept. 14 ribbon cutting ceremony for the agency’s newest early learning center.
The Head-Start center was created through a partnership with the BCIU and Our City Reading, an organization Boscov serves as chairman. And, it was announced during the event, it was dedicated in memory of Cindy Boscov.
A perfect match
The idea for the learning center was born less than a year ago as Our City Reading was looking for ways to fill a vacant former factory building at 229 Washington St. next to the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts complex. The site was undergoing an $18.5 million renovation, which included the creation of a commercial kitchen for the Helping Harvest food bank.
When leaders of the nonprofit met with BCIU officials, it quickly became apparent the two entities were a perfect match.
Thanks to generous financial support — a $700,000 state grant through Sen. Judy Schwank and Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz, $200,000 gifts from Customers Bank, Jerry and Carolyn Holleran and Tompkins Community Bank and other donations from businesses and community members — a plan to create a Head Start program at the site quickly came together.
On Sept. 2, the learning center welcomed its first students. Dr. Jill Hackman, BCIU executive director, said the center opened at about 25% of its 34-student capacity.
Neighborhood in need
Speaking during the ceremony, Hackman said the project is a perfect example of the community coming together to brighten the future of its youngest learners.
“It’s a true example of what we, collectively, can make happen,” she said.
Hackman said the location of the learning center it critical, pointing out that families in the area are suffering from a severe lack of nearby early learning opportunities.
Scott Gruber, the retired president and CEO at Tompkins VIST Bank who is overseeing the renovation of the annex, said he has already seen the impact of the $1.5 million learning center project.
He told the crowd that he recently came across a little girl and her mother leaving the learning center. When he asked the mother what she thought of it, he said, a wide smile stretched across her face as she said that it is giving her daughter a chance to get a quality education just two blocks from their home.
The little girl, Gruber said, was more succinct.
“I love it,” Gruber conveyed as her response. “The mother was smiling, the daughter had a big smile, I was smiling. It was just a really nice moment.”
Gruber said those kind of moments should be plentiful in the coming months and years.
“The impact of your investment will make a difference in many children’s’ lives,” he told the crowd.
That message was driven home by state Secretary of Community and Economic Development Rick Siger, was attended the event.
“This is what can happen when community leaders come together with vision,” he said.
The learning center, Siger said, is about much more than education. He said it fits perfectly into the Shapiro administration’s workforce development efforts. It gives young Pennsylvanians a jumpstart that will lead them to becoming the future skilled workers industry leadesr across the commonwealth are searching for, he said.
Cepeda-Freytiz, who lives just up the street from the center, said it will be transformative.
“It’s a place that will open doors, nurture dreams and strengthen families,” she said, calling it an “investment in the strength of our future.”
Schwank said child care and early education are two of the biggest needs she hears about from constituents. And Head Start, which has a proven track record of success, is a perfect solution.
“Head Start works,” she said.