Migrant children’s program survives

STEUBEN – Children of migrant workers Down East will still have a summer program to attend in spite of the state’s announcement last week that federal funding for migrant education has ceased suddenly.

The Blueberry Harvest Summer Youth Program, which has been conducted for more than 30 summers, will still receive federal money funneled through the Maine Department of Education, the local director of the program said Friday.

The program offers daylong activities over three weeks, the height of the harvest in July and August, at the Ella Lewis School in Steuben.

Darlene Falabella, who has worked with the program locally for more than 20 years, said the Steuben program was re-evaluated last summer in light of the bigger federal investigation of how migrant education funding was being used across the state.

“It’s a real need that is recognized,” Falabella said. “Children less than 12 years old are not allowed on the fields, and they can’t be left alone in the camps.

“Those reviewing migrant education see this summer need. All those people who depend on work here also depend on having a place to go for their children.”

The program provides transportation for all, with a bus that makes the rounds of the camps deep in the blueberry barrens each morning.

As many as 250 children come to the school for the three weeks, starting the last week in July, when families arrive to start the harvest.

Eighty-five percent of the children served are Micmacs from Canada, mostly from two reserves, Big Cove and Eskasoni, Falabella said. Others are Mexicans and other Hispanics, as well as Americans whose families follow the migrant labor market.

Teachers provide classroom lessons in math, reading, art and culture. Children also go swimming daily at Jones Pond in Gouldsboro. They go on field trips each Friday.

The program has been administered recently through the Danforth school district, where a similar program serves families who harvest broccoli. Before that, the Farmington school district handled it and, before that, SAD 37.

Falabella, who is a teacher at Ella Lewis during the school year, said it isn’t clear this year just which district will be administering the program.

As for the state’s summer migrant education programs that have been cut, some districts may try to replace the lost federal money with local funds in order to maintain services.