FROM AN UGLY DUCKLING TO A SWAN

Once a year I go out and do an evaluation of residences that the agency operates and maintains. These residences are for people with disabilities and usually are the best looking homes in the neighborhood. They are beautifully designed both outside and in, decorated by a lovely lady that happens to be the COO of the agency: Lisa Bochner.

MUCH MORE HAS BEEN COMPLETED SINCE THIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN

However there is one home that has been with the agency since 1976, and like any aging beauty, if you don’t watch it, it will let itself go. I first visited this home in 2010, and made a report to the board of directors that the home was in need of repairs, the outside looked like a mess with wires attached running around the place and nailed to the outer walls. The shed was falling apart and the decking in the back was in need of repair and paint. It seems the phone company and the cable company and any utility that was attaching lines to the house was just mounting them onto the outer walls leaving an unsightly looking building. The house parent would be told by the utilities that there was nothing they could do about it. This seemed to me to be a detachment of the utilities from those that lived in the home.

Then again in 2011, I did another inspection on the same house and nothing was done!  I made another report and this one was a little more to the point and critical, expressing my embarrassment and disgust. I was outraged that these companies paid so little respect these wonderful human beings.

CEO, BILL LEONARDI

Since then we have a new CEO, a professional in every sense of the word, and lo and behold, I arrive to do my evaluation a few days ago and my chest swelled up with pride in the agency, it looked beautiful! What once was a wreck was now a thing of beauty! Our new CEO delivered! New siding, new porticos, new detailing, turning the building into a work of beauty is what I saw!

NO UNSIGHTLY WIRES ATTACHED!

I slowly toured the outer building, savoring every detail, and how it all came together, A lot of work still needs to be done, the landscaping for instance, and I know eventually it will be done. But now it will enhance the value of the rest of the homes on the street, and be an equal if not better than those homes. It instills pride in the residents who live in it.

The people that live in this home are a high functioning lot, filled with fun and good humor and a lot of love. They are very proud of their home and how it looks and they expressed it to me. As I had arrived to do my inspection, they were arriving from their program, and filed out of the bus into the house, seeing me, waving and kibitzing. It was a great feeling to be accepted by them, they harbor nothing in their hearts but determination to be accepted, to be understood, and to be loved like anyone else.

I had seen these very same people at a once-a-year ball, called the Candlelight Ball where we celebrate and thank our supporters, staff and vendors. They were sitting at a table so I went over to visit them, and they greeted me like I was family. Good people greeted me, and made me feel good that they accepted me, an achievement I am very proud of, one I hold sacred and dear to me.

The agency is very fortunate. We manage to find people that run these homes and we call them ‘House parents’. They are more than that, they are champions of someone else’s lives, guarding, protecting and nourishing these great and wonderful human beings. My people.