We rang in the New Year with an excellent month here at OVO!  January was filled with good news and big accomplishments!  This mild winter has continued, which has been a plus for our Weatherization Department.  Nice weather has made inspecting, auditing, and working on homes a whole lot easier and allowed us to keep moving forward this season.  Even with a warmer than average winter, our Energy Assistance Program has been booming!  This year, we are especially pleased to see all the new faces applying for our program.  It just goes to show that our focus on community outreach over the last year has paid off and helped new individuals and families access this valuable program!  Our Section 8 Program has been pulling lots of names from the waiting lists, helping new families find quality housing.  Head Start came back from their Winter Break and hit the ground running!  The last few months have been a busy time for staff development in this program with staff attending numerous trainings to make sure our program is up-to-date on the latest developments in early childhood education and that we are providing the highest quality of comprehensive preschool services to our families.  Here are some of the great successes we had during the month of January:

• Congratulations to Samantha Phelps, Head Start Teacher Assistant/Bus Driver at our Jennings County Center, and Erin Vernon, Head Start Teacher Assistant/Bus Driver at our Scott County Center, on earning their CDL licenses!
• We received notification that we have been awarded the Head Start Duration Grant!  This grant will allow us to increase instructional hours for many of the children enrolled in our program as well as increase space at some of our facilities and the staff to student ratio in several of our classrooms.
• Congratulations to Patty Spillman, our Head Start Transportation Coordinator, who welcomed a new granddaughter to her family!
• The Section 8 Program announced that the Waiting List for Scott County would be opening February 6-10th.  For the first time in 2 years, individuals and families will have the opportunity to begin the process of receiving a rental assistance voucher that will help them access safe and affordable housing.
• Our Energy Assistance Program restored heating services for Samantha and her family!
• Section 8 housed 1 new family and held a New Tenant Briefing for 20 new families!
• Head Start Staff secured emergency dental services for a Head Start child.

We’ve got a lot of exciting things on the horizon, so make sure you keep checking back with us for updates on successes most definitely worth celebrating here at OVO!