This article was originally published in the April 7th, 2025 edition of the Gloucester Daily Times and The Salem News and re-shared with permission from its author.

• By Caroline Enos | Staff Writer

DANVERS — Aleah Tillotson was a homeless mother when she arrived with a voucher for her child at a local Head Start program run through the Lynn based nonprofit LEO Inc. Over a decade later, she’s now pursuing a master’s degree and works with the organization.

“I thought my child was just going to go to a good early education program,” Tillotson said. “I was unaware of their multi-generational approach to supporting families. Because of Head Start, I was able to volunteer in my daughter’s classroom, eventually becoming a substitute teacher. Head Start invested in my education.

“I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been like if I didn’t end up bringing my child to Head Start,” she said.

Head Start provides early intervention services for children from birth to age 5, regardless of their families’ income. The program helps youngsters with developmental delays catch up to their peers and prepare children of all abilities for preschool or kindergarten, all while supporting their families.

But these services and others used by many Cape Ann and North Shore residents are in jeopardy, Tillotson and local nonprofit leaders said at a press conference Friday hosted by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Salem,

inside the Northeast Arc’s facility at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers.

The regional Head Start office in Boston that oversees funding for programs across New England was one of five nationally to suddenly close Tuesday as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off 10,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services.

These regional offices administer Head Start funding, conduct training for Head Start organizations and monitor these schools and nonprofits for compliance.

Head Start organizations are continuing to receive funding from the department. But the layoffs have created an alarming lack of direction, said LEO Inc. CEO Birgitta Damon.

“On Tuesday, we learned that half of the regional Head Start offices were closed,” Damon said, noting her organization provides Head Start services to 400 children currently. “Today is Friday. We still have no further word on who it is that we contact in order to ask our questions about the administration of our program.”

About 11,000 children receive Head Start services across the state, including 270 served by Pathways for Children in Gloucester, Beverly and Salem.

Following the closure of the Boston office, a small number of contract workers with the office remain working, said Laura O’Neill, Pathways’ director of institutional advancement.

“We don’t know with certainty how this will impact our programs,” O’Neill said in a statement Friday afternoon. “With fewer regional offices, it is likely to impact how programs receive guidance and oversight and lead to longer response times for administrative matters.”

On Friday, Moulton blasted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and billionaire Elon Musk, who is unofficially spearheading the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency, which is behind the mass layoffs across the government.

Moulton called these cuts “chaotic” and “not thoughtful.”

“Secretary Kennedy, like so many others in this administration, from the vice president on down, was against Trump before he was (sworn in), derided Trump before he rode him to power and influence, no matter what the cost,” Moulton said at the press conference. “The cost is lives. The cost is the support and well-being of our communities every single day.”

Kennedy’s department also administers crucial funding to local programs providing fuel assistance on the North Shore. The entirety of the department’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program was fired last week, leaving organizations such as Action Inc. in Gloucester unsure who will now oversee this funding source and if it will still exist.

“(LIHEAP) is the one that administers the program, and any delay or loss in LIHEAP funding will have severe consequences locally, but also across the country,” Action CEO Peggy Hegarty-Steck said at the press conference.

Action helped pay to heat the homes of 3,400 individuals through LIHEAP funding over the past year, Hegarty-Steck said. North Shore Community Action Programs, based in Peabody, provided this support to 150,000 households last year and has seen an 8% increase in fuel assistance applications this year, NSCAP Executive Director Laura Meisenhelter said.

“This program removes families from having to make the choice between whether they can keep the heat on or they’re going to buy groceries,” Meisenhelter said. “Whether elders are going to keep heat on or get their prescriptions.”

One of NSCAP’s fuel assistance clients is the Rev. Mike Otero-Otero, a pastor at St. Clare of Assisi church in Peabody and a representative of a low-income community on NSCAP’s board of directors. He and his family live in an entirely electric condominium.

“If we were unable to pay for our heat, we were unable to cook or use an oven to heat our apartment,” Otero-Otero said at the press conference. “We were at a very vulnerable point in our lives. Because of humility, we found out that there’s great joy in programs such as this.”

There isn’t much Democrats can do to combat cuts like these when Congress is controlled by Republicans who have aligned with Trump, and as the president continues to attempt to undermine the judicial system, Moulton said.

“I’m working behind the scenes to try to get my Republican colleagues to just do the right thing, to just have the courage to speak up and tell the truth about what’s happening not just in my community, but in their communities,” he said.