What is the Extravaganza?

Each spring, Extravaganza raises funds and friends for early childhood literacy programs at Rocky Mountain Development Council Head Start.   What started years ago as a popular Easter Basket contest at a local craft show has blossomed into its own event: an evening of jazz, tasty nibbles, good drink and warm conversation set in the lush greenhouses of Valley Farms. (Event Information)

One night each year Extravaganza brings together a community invested in helping at-risk children fall in love with learning.  Over the years, Extravaganza has funded learning tools such as:

• School to Home Project supplies for 250 low-income preschool age boys and girls in Broadwater, Jefferson and Lewis & Clark counties.  Every month, Head Start kids take home a packet of parent/child activities and a new children’s book.  Almost 60% of the projects are completed and returned.   

• Lumber, drills, sandpaper and books for the Dad & Kid Bookshelf Build.  During the bookshelf build, kids help their dads put together a bookshelf which then goes home…complete with a brand new children’s book.   

• Classroom materials to support Creative Curriculum – the core of the Head Start learning environment.  All fifteen Head Start classrooms have received early childhood puzzles, manipulatives, texture table materials, digital cameras and other “ingredients for the successful classroom.”

• A Family Companion to the Early Learning Guidelines for each and every Head Start family. Developed by Montana’s Early Childhood Bureau, the companion is a beautiful, practical spiral-bound guidebook to activities parents can do at home to augment classroom learning. 

The money and support raised through Extravaganza allows RMDC Head Start to go above and beyond to engage children and their parents as partners in the learning process.  Be part of Extravaganza 2010 and  give our community’s at-risk children  a life-long love of learning.