Dear Friends,

I want to share with you a number of changes that will take place at Ontario ARC over the next year.

Over the past few years, individuals who had previously been at either the Abbey Industries workshop or the Eberhardt Center were given the opportunity to receive services at one of five Community Learning Centers (formerly known as Day Hab programs) located throughout Ontario County, our College Experiences at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC) campuses and our seniors program known as Sit-a-Spell at the Canandaigua Salvation Army. These programs were called Options and Opportunities.

During this time, we opened Sully’s, a food service training program and cafeteria located in our main facility. We also continue to support close to 200 people in jobs in the community, and just recently placed a seven-person work crew at Koch Container in Victor.

All of these programs focus on giving people with developmental disabilities the opportunity to learn about, be part of, and give back to their communities. They have proven to be great successes and we continually hear from people we serve and their families as to how much they are learning and enjoying these programs.

With this is mind, we are pleased to announce the next phase of Options and Opportunities for those individuals who currently remain in our sheltered workshop.

Over the course of the next year, we will offer new services that focus on employment opportunities, volunteerism and "personal enrichment" classes in areas such as art, music, horticulture, dance, nutrition, exercise and computer use. We will also expand the services offered to seniors with developmental disabilities.

One of the most significant changes as we move forward with this exciting new initiative has to do with our Abbey Industries factory or sheltered workshop. The ARC Board of Directors recently approved closing the workshop by no later than April 1, 2010 and using that space to develop the new services mentioned above. Also, we wish to emphasize that everyone currently served in the workshop will have the opportunity to participate in these new services.

We are truly excited about this new direction we are taking. Thank you for helping to create new exciting opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. If you have any questions or suggestions, please give me a call or drop me an e-mail at bcastiglione@ontarioarc.org.

Sincerely,

William J. Castiglione
Executive Director