Nelsonville home to two new community organizations

by Ben Grabow
Staff Writer

Not many ribbon cuttings involve 5-year-olds with plastic scissors.

Nelsonville Head Start Center and the new Community Action Housing Office celebrated a joint grand opening yesterday afternoon. Employees of the facilities, residents of the area and the children of Head Start classes gathered for a ribbon cutting in front of the two neighboring buildings on Saint Charles Street.

The Head Start Center is a child development center, said Chris DeLematre, the director of child development programming. The center, relocated from Hocking College, offers free preschool for Nelsonville residents.

After the closing of the HC location, Head Start teachers spent seven months teaching in students' homes and Sunday school classrooms because of a lack of facilities.

DeLematre thanked Citizen's Bank for its financial support of the new Head Start facility.

Larry Kienzle, senior vice president of Citizen's Bank, said he felt the community needed this facility.

"Our kids are our futures. It makes enough sense to me," he said.

Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action also celebrated the opening of its new housing office. Doug Stanley, the director of community housing, said this was a symbolic opening, as the office already has been open for more than two weeks.

Community Action offers weatherization for residents who cannot afford to have it done to their houses. Weatherization includes insulation, venting and heating system repairs to ensure that homes are heated as efficiently as possible.

Stanley said Community Action also has had issues with relocation in the past, but the new facilities will provide a home base for workers. He said workers have gone through rough times, but even without a main office they have persevered.

"Throughout the past year, with all the disruptions, I couldn't be prouder of our staff," he said.

Bob Garbo, the executive director of Hocking-Athens-Perry Community Action also was present at the ribbon cutting. He thanked the zoning board and Nelsonville for their support.

"I see this as another agency making a commitment to Nelsonville," he said.

In addition to these two new facilities, the grand opening of the Appalachian Development Federal Credit Union will be next week. The ribbon cutting is scheduled for 10 a.m. May 1 at the new office, 54 W. Washington St. in Nelsonville.

The ADFCU is a community development credit union that serves low- to moderate-income families in Southeast Ohio. The credit union has circulated more than $1.8 million in loans to such families in the last four years.