In 1968, MCDC began providing Head Start services with an enrollment of seventy-five (75) low-income Montclair preschool-aged children from three to five years old and a roster of sixteen (16) employees. Over the years our enrollment has reached as high as 529, today we serve 490 children, 438 Head Start (center based) 52 Early Head Start (40 center based & 12 home based). Our centers are located in Montclair, Glen Ridge and Orange, NJ. We represent more than four decades of successful service delivery and advocacy on behalf of the most vulnerable members of our targeted communities: Belleville, Bloomfield, Montclair, Orange, and West Orange.   

Additionally, most of our 130 full and part-time employees reside in the communities we serve and are former Head Start children and/or families. Every day we engage in the actualization of our mission “to provide successful encounters that will embrace the child, empower the family and strengthen the community.”   

MCDC continues to demonstrate its incredible ability to perform and develop in an effort to realize its greatest potential.  As such, we have become a highly respected and trusted member of the communities we serve. Annually, we conduct an agency-wide self-assessment and we update our community assessment to determine the needs of the families we serve. Through this analysis, we have developed service areas/initiatives within our agency that provide comprehensive services for children and families.