Centers get piece of tobacco cash

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- A chunk of the extra cash that smokers have been

doling out for two years is finally making its way to families here.

The latest round of funding from Proposition 10, the 1998 initiative

that collects money for early childhood development programs across the

state, awarded a grant to an organization in each city. Combined, the

money totals nearly $500,000.

The initiative placed a 50-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other

tobacco products to fund child-care and anti-tobacco programs for

children up to age 5.

The Children and Families Commission of Orange County, which controls

the local revenues, this month funded 44 grants in the county totaling

more than $17 million, including the two within Newport Beach and Costa

Mesa, said Heidi Hauff, spokeswoman for the commission.

In Costa Mesa, the Jewish Community Center received $300,000 to fund a

special preschool project, something the group had already been striving

to create on a smaller scale.

“At first I was very surprised because we are such a small

organization. I was shocked,” said Jan Weiner, the program coordinator.

“Now it’s going fantastically -- life couldn’t be better. I’m just

thrilled for these children and their families.”

The program is designed to identify children with additional or

special needs and either bring them up to speed before kindergarten or

ensure that they can function in a regular kindergarten class, Weiner

said.

“Overall it’s meant to promote acceptance of everyone as equal from

childhood to adulthood, making sure children with special needs have as

normal a preschool experience as possible,” said Steven Jacobs, director

of early childhood education at the center.

In Newport Beach, the Assessment and Treatment Services Center, a

nonprofit family counseling center, was awarded $168,895 to begin offering new parenting programs to parents of preschool-age children.

The course, Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, commonly

known as the STEP program, will be held 10 times a year, with seven being

offered in English and three in Spanish, said Melinda Giunaldo, the

center’s executive director.

The class will teach the parents of children 3 to 5 how to understand

their children in a general sense and their children’s behavior, she

said.

It will also teach parents how to build self-esteem in children in the

early years of development and how to communicate with young children,

she added.

“We’ll teach parents how to teach children to cooperate and effective

discipline methods,” Giunaldo said. “And teach parents how to nurture

social and emotional development in a young child.”

The Spanish version of the class will include all of these elements,

Giunaldo said, but it will also focus on helping parents deal with

cultural differences and what their role as a parent is in this society.

The courses will be held in a new office the Newport Beach-based

counseling center will open in Orange thanks to the grant money.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District also will receive funding

from the initiative. In an earlier round of funding, the Newport-Mesa was

one of 25 school districts in the county that was eligible for an $85,000

grant to create a two-year program to prepare preschoolers for

kindergarten.

The school board approved the grant agreement Tuesday to accept the

$85,000.

This $17 million in grant funding was just beginning for Orange County

this year, Hauff said.

There is another $20.5 million earmarked for programs in the county

within the next year, she said. The commission plans to announce another

round of grant recipients Wednesday, she added.