Tireless Advocacy Raises Revenue, Changes Lives in Western Mass
Writing client success stories always inspires me, which is why I enjoy telling stories for The Association For Community Living. The nonprofit’s good work changes many lives for the better. All year long. Year after year.
This organization based in Springfield, Mass., offers assistance in varying forms to people living with a developmental disability across western Massachusetts, and their families. Most recently, I got to tell the story of 54-year-old Deb Tetreault in a press release prepared in collaboration with Ruth Griggs, who I work with as part of The Creative, along with Maureen Scanlon.
The Association has been helping Deb and her family for many years now with caregiving and other services. But as her mother, Jeanette Gilmartin of Springfield, nears 80, it was becoming difficult for Jeanette to maintain the condo she owned for Deb.
Then The Association developed housing, specifically for people like Deb who are aging with a disability. Deb moved into this new ranch home in Agawam in July 2014. She gained new friends, a broader sense of community and independence, more opportunities for activities, and more staff support.
Jeanette gained peace of mind.
“It’s an emotional and physical relief,” says Jeanette, a longtime employee of The Association. “I became familiar with many different agencies over the years, and this is the only agency that I feel delivers the kind of care that I would expect and want for my daughter.”
The Association was pleased as well. Headed by Executive Director Barbara T. Pilarcik, The Association For Community Living has a heart and a solid road map for its way forward.
Agency leaders have long recognized the need to provide housing for an aging population of senior citizens with physical and development disabilities, like Deb, and have worked tirelessly in past years to grow state funding levels, in part to address that need.
For this kind of forethought, for the second year in a row, The Association was named by the Affiliated Chamber of Commerce of Springfield, Mass. as a Super 60 in the total revenue category. It was recognized at the 25th annual celebration last fall at Chez Josef in Agawam.
Barbara was honored and felt the recognition underscored the agency’s solid growth. “It wasn’t a one-year fluke or an accident,” she says.
Barbara says, though, that the organization can’t rest on its fundraising laurels. It must keep lobbying the state and continue to remind donors of the needs that still exist and are not being met.
I have faith that The Association will keep the momentum going, continuing to increase the number of lives it changes for the better.
