Back to School for One Successful Parent

LaToya Hunt of Hurt didn’t have an opportunity to go through Pittsylvania County Community Action Inc.’s Head Start Program, but she’s benefiting from the program both as a parent and professionally.

Hunt’s 5-year-old son, DeAndre Milller, spent two years in Head Start in Altavista.

“He did very well. It’s a very good program with good teachers,” said Hunt. “He learned a lot. It’s going to help him a lot in kindergarten.”

Hunt served as a parent volunteer for Head Start, a preschool program for 3- and 4-year-olds.

“I’d volunteer every chance I could,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance to go to Head Start, but I really enjoyed being a parent volunteer.”

Hunt said the teachers encouraged her to get her state license to become a pharmacy technician.

“Just seeing that my child was trying encouraged me to go forward and do what I wanted to do,” she said. “It gave me a real boost.”

Born and raised in Renan, Hunt, 29, graduated from Gretna High School in 1996. at Gretna High, she was in Project Discovery, another successful PCCA program.

She worked at Burlington Industries’ Klopman plant in Hurt, but was eventually laid off as the plant prepared to shut down.

the lay-off, however, gave her the opportunity to return to school under the Trade Act, and Hunt completed the pharmacy technician program at Miller-Mott Technical College in Lynchburg in 2006.

She was working at Ross Laboratories when she heard that Wal-Mart was planning to open a new supercenter store in Altavista.

Hunt applied for a pharmacy technician position and was hired last June. She passed her state boards this past spring, and hopes to take her national boards.

As a pharmacist technician, Hunt takes prescriptions, records patients’ information on the computer, assists the pharmacist, and helps fill prescriptions.

“You meet so many different people,” she said. “I like knowing I am helping people with their medications.”

Hunt would like to work in a hospital one day.

She recommends Head Start, noting the preschool program really helped her son — and helped her too.

PCCA sponsors Head Start programs in Pittsylvania, Campbell and Henry counties and the City of Martinsville.