Carbon County Action Committee History
Who We Are (Mission and History)
The Carbon County Action Committee for Human Services (CCACHS) was incorporated in June of 1965 as a non-profit 501(c)3 charitable organization. The agency is a member of a national network of Community Action Agencies that were developed under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” to design and operate programs to alleviate and/or eliminate the problems and/or cause of poverty and enable low income persons and families to become more self-sufficient. The agency (a.k.a. “the Action Committee”) was originally funded under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which was rescinded and replaced by the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) in 1981 for the purpose of delegating the responsibility for the administration of Community Action Agencies to the states. The PA Department of Community and Economic Development (PA DCED) is responsible for the administration and oversight of Pennsylvania’s Community Action Agency network and the CSBG, which remains one of the Action Committee’s primary funding sources today.
The first program offered by the agency in mid-1960 was the “Head Start Comprehensive Pre-School Program”. This program operated under the Action Committee’s umbrella until the late 1970’s, when it was eventually spun off as a separate entity. The mid to late 60’s also represented the days of surplus food distributions (powdered milk, cheese, corn meal, canned meats, etc.) to those in need and high welfare rolls. As a result, the agency established a pilot program in 1968 called the “Home Help” program to help struggling families make better use of limited resources through skilled budgeting, shopping, meal preparation, and the like. This “Home Help” was transformed to meet the needs of the county’s high elderly population of persons age 60 and over in preventing institutionalization by helping its recipients remain in their own homes through light housekeeping, laundry, and/or shopping assistance. Currently the program has been canceled.
In the mid 1970’s a need for child care arose with more and more families becoming either 2-parent or single parent working households. As a result, the Action Committee established the county’s first day care center in the mid 70’s and continued to operate up to 3 centers through 1990’s. As time progressed, however, many private centers opened in the county and the agency closed its last center in September, 2005.
Since its inception, the Carbon County Action Committee for Human Services has acquired vast experience in developing and implementing a variety of programs directed toward enabling our less fortunate neighbors to become more self-sufficient. Some of these programs, as previously expressed, have been in direct response to local needs; while others have been in direct response to State and Federal Needs and Priorities such as the agency’s Weatherization program which was initiated nationwide in the 1970’s and remains a State, Federal and Local Priority today.