This Portland organization has found a way to keep early childhood education accessible, aided by a prominent philanthropist

Albina Head Start, long a mainstay of free early child care and preschool for thousands of Portland’s low-income families, has found a way to ensure it can continue to

provide high quality care

to nearly 1,000 children each year.

Its solution, aided by Oregon’s

most famous philanthropist

, is property.

In the last several years, Albina Head Start has bought, remodeled or seismically upgraded at least six buildings in North, Northeast and Southeast Portland for its child care and preschools, the program’s director, Ron Herndon, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

While Albina Head Start’s free price tag for low-income families is guaranteed — the promise of Head Start programs nationally — the organization’s investments aim to ensure that it can reliably offer all its current child care and preschool services, or even expand them, regardless of the amount of money coming in, he said.

“This allows the program to have space that it owns. It does not have to lease space,” Herndon said. “It solidifies our ability to maintain services going forward in a very uncertain funding environment.”

The building purchases and upgrades have been supported financially by Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who has contributed more than $20 million for them, Herndon told The Oregonian/OregonLive. Knight did not respond to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s request for comment.

Knight has been supporting Herndon and Head Start for decades. His series of donations over the last four years kickstarted the preschool program’s recent expansions, Herndon said.

“If it were not for him, I don’t know how we could have maintained or owned those properties,” Herndon said. “We do not have that kind of money.”

A focus on Northeast Portland

The preschool program’s latest expansion, at Northeast 16th Avenue and Alberta Street, lies in the heart of Portland’s historic Albina neighborhood, spanning North and Northeast Portland, which was long home to the heart of Oregon’s Black community.

While Albina Head Start welcomes children of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, it serves more Black children than any other Oregon early childhood program.

Albina Head Start’s expanding anchor in Northeast Portland is part of what leaders, including at the nonprofits Albina Vision Trust and the 1803 Fund, hope will be a blossoming of Black-serving education institutions in the area, teaching learners from babyhood through graduate school.

The 1803 Fund, a philanthropic effort funded by Knight to support Portland’s Black community, sees education as a critical component of building strong communities in the future, said communications manager Juma Sei. JT Flowers, Albina Vision Trust’s communications director, agreed, emphasizing that education is necessary to reinvigorate Albina, the goal of his nonprofit.

“You can’t have a world class district without a world class commitment to education,” Flowers said.

Albina Head Start leaders named their newest addition the McKinley Burt Center, after a prominent Black author and community mentor who lived in the now-demolished building in the 1960s. Construction began last month and is expected to be completed next summer, Herndon said. The center will include two classrooms, adding space to serve up to 30 more children, a playground and other work spaces.

An important investment in children

For Herndon, the mission of providing financially and physically accessible early childhood education is critical.

Children practice writing in an Albina Head Start classroom. The program provides free early childhood education and is making sure its services remain accessible by purchasing property.

Albina Head Start

“It’s so important to provide these opportunities to kids at the earliest age possible,” Herndon said. “Kids that are part of Head Start are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to attend college, more likely to avoid the criminal justice system.”

Letty Jimenez, an Albina Head Start parent turned employee, said that the program provided her family with a variety of support.

“For our family, it really provided us with a head start in life,” Jimenez said.

Jimenez said that as an Albina Head Start employee she’s been able to see those positive impacts on other families as well. The program’s extended hours allow parents to work full time and immerse children in the classroom, Jimenez said.

Grappling with gentrification

Operating these programs can be challenging, and one of the most difficult aspects is finding suitable space, Herndon said. In many of the neighborhoods that Albina Head Start serves, the cost of leasing appropriate buildings is extremely high, Herndon said.

Albina Head Start’s focal neighborhoods have seen significant gentrification. In the 1950s and 1960s, the government seized and destroyed hundreds of homes in Albina for Interstate 5, the Rose Quarter, what was then Emanuel Hospital and various public works projects. The destruction, combined with housing discrimination, drove and priced many Black residents and businesses out of the area.

To this day, the property costs remain high, making it difficult for organizations like Albina Head Start to afford rent.

“Because it’s been gentrified, it’s been difficult to find spaces for child care that are affordable,” Herndon said.

So, the purchasing began.

A ‘child-centered’ neighborhood

At the same time that Albina Head Start has been investing in property and expanding their programming in Northeast Portland, other organizations have too.

Two months ago, Albina Vision Trust and Lewis & Clark College, which is headquartered in a more rural section of Southwest Portland, announced a partnership which would bring college classes and research to a building complex that the trust is working to construct in the Albina neighborhood.

“We are building a child-centered district,” Flowers said. “Communities that have been pushed out of our city are moving back into a neighborhood that is committed to their generational development.”

Portland Public Schools has also promised to build a new Jefferson High and Harriet Tubman Middle School in the area and create a Center for Black Student Excellence there. The district has faced

significant criticism

for how slowly it has moved on all three of those initiatives.

And, in April, the 1803 Fund,

announced

that Albina Head Start and nonprofit Self Enhancement Inc., which provides education and mentoring to Black youth, would each receive $25 million to bolster their operations. They’ll also be given $2.5 million a year for the next decade to distribute to the next generation of institutions uplifting Portland’s Black families and children through education, Sei said.

“We’re interested in things that can be done today, tomorrow, two weeks from now, two years from now that will sustain progress for decades,” Sei said. “We are particularly focused on Black children because of the ways our public institutions have been historically ineffective at serving them.”