Arc of Dauphin County

1. Enhance quality of life and community integration for individuals with Special Needs.
2. Be accessible and responsive to families, care takers, SC's, and others supporting those with Special Needs, as well as the same for the Consumers themselves.
3. Always be alert to new programs and services we can offer.
4. Be a voice for the community.
5. Advocate for the civil rights of our Consumers.
6. Continually educate ourselves and improve the quality of the services and programs we offer.

1. Enhance the quality of life and community integration for individuals with special needs.
2. Create menu of services that advances the mission of The Arc of Dauphin County and is sustainable.
3. Diversify funding in order to increase resources available to support programs and necessary infrastructure.
4. Increase interaction between individuals servedf by The Arc of Dauphin County and the community at large.

Our organization is launching its 66th year in 2019. Stretching back over 66 years, we have indeed met and surpassed many goals. We have worked hard at advocacy and giving voice to those that are struggling to find a way to express and advocate for themselves...as well as to advocate for those who have no way to express themselves. We, through legislation, advocacy and our support of law suits filed by The Arc of Pennsylvania, have been instrumental in shutting one of the most squalid, horrid institutions in America, the dreaded "Penhurst." We now continue to work on the state and federal program known as "Money follows the Person", which advocates for supporting those who want to live in their own communities, or live with their families to be able to do so.

Our best tool for this huge effort is our exemplary professional team. Our Director of Consumer Programs is a veteran of over 25 years' service, our Advocate team has over 20 years' experience, and our other team members have equally impressive pedigrees and seniority. Our board is composed of professionals throughout the community who have direct or tangential relationship with the disability community, and our President/CEO has a nonprofit leadership career stretching over 40 years, including leading a landmark accessible project, the first of its kind in America, which provided unprecedented access to persons with mobility disability to an international conservation site that had been inaccessible for over 88 years. Our entire team has been described by an author outside of our community as "Over the top qualified and dedicated." We receive a constant stream of thank you and appreciation notes from the community. Our entire philosophy is centered on "People First" outlook, and dedication to those whom we serve.

What have we accomplished in 66 years? That answer would fill a book, and we only have 3,000 characters to supply an answer to describe our progress. We will fast forward to the past four years and list some major accomplishments:
1. Launched a new program for reviewing incidents within our organization and as a service to provide other Human Service organizations. Working through Temple University and Pa's Office of Developmental Programs (ODP), we became Certified Investigators.
2. More recently, we have trained a class through Temple University and ODP to provide Peer Reviews of Certified Investigations.
3. We have gone through a process that took over a year with the state to become qualified to offer a program newly supported by ODP called, "Supports Broker." This will be a hallmark program for us in time.
4. We have gone through a process with Pennsylvania's Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) to be qualified and to offer accredited curriculum for employment readiness programs of many types.
5. We have sold our summer camp in the mountains and rebuilt a more appropriate Respite Weekend Camp in an urban setting, much more accessible to our Consumers. This was a major project and included investment from throughout our community here in Harrisburg.
6. After launching a brand new Respite Facility, we launched a Respite Summer Camp for teens who are undeserved during the summer during school vacation and who also have I/DD.
7. We have expanded the number of Consumers we are aiding in RepPayee to 500. This was a milestone number for us.
8. We have expanded our volunteer corps. We now have more volunteers working with us than any time in recent memory going back at least two generations.
9. We have organized a 65 year-old mess of records into an efficient and properly stored Archives, which tracks our history in photographs, documents, films, and artifacts.
10. We have restored the two buildings on our small campus, and int he final days of 2018 we are getting brand new flooring throughout the area used by Consumers on the first floor of our headquarters building.
11. We have kept our costs as low as possible, operate "lean and smart," and accomplish a great deal with a small staff.
12. We launched a highly lauded newsletter, "The ArcNews"
13. We significantly raised our profile in the community, which helps with fundraising and other support. Five years ago, many in the community had not heard of The Arc of Dauphin County. Now, through television, radio, presence at major events such as professional baseball and theater, we are becoming more "top of mind" all the time.
14. We reignited our annual art show of art created by persons with disabilities. In 2019 we will have our 45th annual Our Art, Our Voice Art Show.
15. We have significantly aggrandized our litny of supporters through major grants and memberships.
16. Proselytized legislation to support the I/DD community.