Morning Garden
Morning Garden is a unique preschool and parent education program for homeless families and families in transition who have preschool aged children. Morning Garden provides a safe haven for parents to bring their children where Hands Together helps foster their social, emotional, and educational development. These especially vulnerable children are provided an early childhood education in a calm and serene environment. Our goal exceeds the traditional need to provide a high quality preschool program so they will be prepared for educational success in later years.
This early childhood education program is modeled after the esteemed Waldorf schools. Morning Garden offers developmentally appropriate, structured activities that help young children learn how to play well together, share resources, respect others and ultimately provide the foundation for future educational achievements.
Parents are encouraged to participate in parenting and vocational training classes while their children engage in learning opportunities through social interaction with other children. The emphasis on the parenting program is the instruction of basic life and survival skills such as financial literacy, interview skills, resume preparation and GED acquisition. Morning Garden also teaches nutrition and low cost meal preparation. All the components support the personal and professional development of extremely poor families. Our program recognizes the potential for success in all people, including parents experiencing homelessness. Resource development funds fully support this unique and valuable program for extremely low income families.
The employees and volunteers at Morning Garden are deeply committed to assisting parents with their needs. An emphasis is placed on language classes, including English as a second language, vocational training and job search assistance, letters of reference, resume writing, referral to local resources, exercise, nutrition and cooking classes and emotional support. At Morning Garden, families grow and become self-sufficient community members.
Thanks to an American Action & Recovery Act grant from OC Community Action Partnership, Morning Garden is now open Monday through Friday.
For more information, contact us.