Our mission is to empower children and adults with developmental disabilities to achieve their potential based on personal choices, abilities and interests...

For more information about donations, please contact:

Anne Sweazey
Executive Director
Westchester Arc Foundation
phone: (914) 428-8330, ext. 3336,
fax: (914) 997-2985
asweazey@
westchesterarc.org

Westchester Arc
The Gleeson-Israel Gateway Center
265 Saw Mill River Road
Hawthorne, NY 10532
914.949.9300
info@westchesterarc.org

24-hour
Crisis Intervention:
914.949.8200

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Dear friend:

As this challenging year draws to a close, we are writing to you with two requests:

 

1. Take Action. Add your Voice to Theirs.

You received our action alert a few weeks ago, and we hope that you were able to register your opinion with Governor David Paterson on his disastrous proposal to cut $375 million from services to children, youth and adults with developmental disabilities.

These cuts will result in:

• Staff members losing their jobs and families being forced to provide services for their loved ones.
• Severely limited ability to provide integrated, community-based services, for which we have fought for so many years.
  
  

People with disabilities are taking the lead in communications with the Governor’s office. On November 9th, they made a video at our Gleeson-Israel Gateway Center. (Click here to view) This video was sent to every member of the New York State Assembly and Senate, along with the Governor.

We ask you now to add your voice to theirs: Take a moment to send the attached message to Governor Paterson. There is still time, if we act promptly, to have an impact on the decisions coming out of Albany.

2. Give Generously.

Sixty years ago, Ann Greenberg, A Bronx mother of modest means, ran a two dollar ad in the New York Daily Post seeking other parents of children with developmental disabilities to play with her lonely son. Mrs. Greenberg was overwhelmed by more than two hundred letters! It was the first time that the stigmatizing word, “retarded,” had ever appeared in a newspaper, and it opened a floodgate of pent-up responses from families in desperate need.

Mrs. Greenberg sent the letters from Westchester parents to one of the couples in Mamaroneck, and remarkably this became the nucleus of the fledgling “Westchester Association for Retarded Children” in 1949.

Over the past 60 years, this extraordinary organization has become Westchester’s largest service provider. Every day, Westchester Arc serves over 1600 children and adults with developmental disabilities, including those who live in our more than forty-five group residences. In addition, Westchester Arc has trained hundreds of adults who have become tax-paying Westchester employees rather than dependents.

Your generosity and friendship through the years have meant so much to Westchester Arc. With your help, we have been able to meet the financial challenges to provide the highest standards of service to people with developmental disabilities and their families.

We are committed to upholding the promise that we make to every family we serve — to enable people with disabilities to reach their full potentials. Through your generosity, we will keep our promise.

We thank you for your loyal friendship and we wish you and those you love a joyous holiday and a peaceful new year.

Best regards,

Sheryl F. Frishman, Esq. President	Richard P. Swierat Executive Director

To make an individual gift or to learn more about how to make a donation to the Westchester Arc Foundation, please call Elyse Fowler, Westchester Arc Foundation at 914.428.8330, ext. 4515, or send e-mail to fhiggins@westchesterarc.org. The Westchester Arc Foundation has chosen PayPal as its authorized payment processor. Click here to make a secure online donation.