PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The TD Charitable Foundation, the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, and its Maine Market President presented the local ACAP Head Start with a donation of $5,000. The presentation was held at ACAP Early Care and Education Center, Gouldville.
“We are so pleased to receive this generous gift from the Foundation,” said Sue Powers, senior manager, ACAP Family Services. “This gift is being used to help fund the purchase of laptops for our Early Head Start and Head Start Home Visitor program.
“By providing our teachers and staff with mobile wireless laptops,” she explained, “we give them the opportunity to have immediate access to family health and educational records and family-support tools so they can respond quickly with vital and time-sensitive information for up to 125 low-income rural families with children under the age of five. We are very grateful for this support from the TD Charitable Foundation.”
Early Head Start and Head Start staff are committed to helping parents understand they are their child’s first teacher. In addition to parenting skills, home visits with families include creating and setting future goals and identifying a plan to achieve those goals. Providing home visitors with laptops will increase their level of access to support their clients and respond to their basic living needs, and in so doing improve the self-sufficiency of the families they serve. As the family’s independence improves it reduces the burden on their local communities and other organizations that may support them.
“We take our responsibility to invest in the enrichment of the community seriously and supporting programs that enable our families to thrive are important to us,” said Larry Wold, Market President, TD Bank. “This program will help to improve the lives of so many families throughout Aroostook County and TD is extremely proud to support it.”
For 44 years, Aroostook County Action Program, Inc. (ACAP) has provided the people of Aroostook County with services and resources that help individuals and families achieve greater economic independence.
TD Bank and the TD Charitable Foundation provide support to affordable housing, financial literacy and education, and environmental initiatives, many of which focus on improving the welfare of children and families.