Nonprofit Innovation Awards: Program creates opportunities for people with special needs

Winner: Collaboration

It started with a group of parents who wanted something better for their children.

The parents were worried: Would their children with mental retardation enjoy opportunities to volunteer and be a part of the community after they turned 21 and left the educational system?

The answer is "yes" thanks to a collaborative program, the Hanover Street Neighbors Association.

Founded in 2004, the program provides daytime activities for adults with mental retardation and other disabilities, said Pam Shenk, community advocate for Cumberland/

Perry Arc, one of the groups that helped start the association. Other partners include United Cerebral Palsy of Central Pennsylvania and Cumberland-Perry Mental Health/

Mental Retardation Services.

Although established organizations are involved, Shenk gives much of the credit to the parents. They identified the problem, came up with a solution, and convinced government officials to provide $60,000 in startup funding.

"The parents are the movers and shakers," Shenk said. "They are the ones who get up and say, ‘This is not good enough.'"

The parents' goal was a smaller program with fewer participants than existing programs, a higher staff ratio and plenty of activities. The force behind those activities is the participants themselves.

Staff members find out what participants want to do and match them with activities in the community. A person who enjoys animals has been able to volunteer at an animal shelter. Another, who enjoyed people, helped bring nursing-home residents in wheelchairs to appointments at a beauty shop.

"They all have abilities, they all have potential, and they all can contribute," Shenk said. "And that's what the parents want for their children, to be seen as contributing citizens."

Hanover Street Neighbors serves 18 people, mostly from the Carlisle area. Up to 12 take part on any given day. Some are served five days a week, others on one or two days.

In addition to volunteer activities, the group takes trips to area attractions such as Zoo America, Chocolate World and the National Civil War Museum. Participants also have attended minor league baseball games in Harrisburg.

It has been difficult at times to convince people to give program participants a chance, Shenk said. But parents helped open doors through their contacts in the community.

Four years after its founding, Hanover Street Neighbors is becoming entwined in the life of the area. People are starting to recognize the name when a staff member calls, Shenk said.

The program's reputation has even reached parents in the Mechanicsburg area, who hope to create something similar this summer, Shenk said.