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Baldwin Herald 09-28-2023

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St. Peter’s provides preschool option now By BEN FIEBERT bfiebert@liherald.com

Courtesy Betsy Transom

Maritza Lopez, director of St. Peter’s Early Learning Center in Baldwin, volunteered to teach and play with the pre-K class at St. Peter’s Vacation Bible School in August.

As universal pre-K expands in the public schools, St. Peter’s Early Learning Center, which has operated in Baldwin for 28 years, continues to offer parents an alternative. Maritza Lopez, ELC director, has noticed a drop in the center’s enrollment since universal pre-K started to be offered in public schools. Despite the decrease, Lopez said she wants to continue to provide families with a different early education prog ram. The ELC prog ram is much smaller than the one offered in public schools, but Lopez said ContinuEd on PAgE 4

Bethany House appoints Catherine Swanson as new director By BEN FIEBERT bfiebert@liherald.com

Catherine Swanson was appointed the new executive director of Bethany House earlier this month. She brings 20 years of experience in human services to the position. On Sept. 8, Bethany House, which offers emergency shelter and transitional services to women and children in an effort to end the cycle of homelessness, announced that it had hired Swanson to take over several duties. Swanson’s expertise is in emergency housing and social work, and at Bethany House she will implement

the policies of the board of directors, and advise the board on strategic direction, organizational development and fundraising in addition to overseeing day-to-day operations. Swanson was most recently the deputy director of emergency housing at the Nassau County Of fice of Housing Department of Social Services. She earned an undergraduate degree at Syracuse University’s School of Social Work, and a master’s in clinical social work at Adelphi University’s Graduate School of Social Work. “I felt like when I saw this opportunity to join the Bethany House, it was my time to leave

government and start working for a nonprofit, where I could help the homeless population from a different vantage point,” Swanson said. “And I’m excited (about) how I’ll be able to make an impact working with a segment of the population instead of the entire homeless population.” She added that although she just started working at Bethany House a few weeks ago, she already had lots of ideas about how to help serve the homeless population. She explained that the facility will continue to expand on its existing programs, which are all geared toward helping women and

children transition from a “life of uncertainty and homelessness to a brighter, more stable future,” as Swanson described it. One program in particular that she wants to expand is called Safe Ground, a three-step approach in which those in need are provided with food and housing, and then make the transition to a traditional

housing program. “Once they start building on their education and having a more stable income, they move into our third step, which is an apartment program,” Swanson explained. “From there they become independent, because we want to break the cycle of homelessness.” The program is funded not ContinuEd on PAgE 9


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