Clearbrook celebrates donors in efforts to serve those with disabilities
Clearbrook recognizes it can’t cure the children and adults it serves who deal with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
What it can do as the state’s largest provider of services, programs and support for such clients is to give them the best opportunity to live life to the fullest.
On Thursday, the Arlington Heights-based agency is recognizing those who most support its efforts at a “Generations of Generosity” reception.
The event at Medinah Country Club, 6N001 Medinah Road, is a celebration of longtime and significant donors to an organization that has helped more than 35,000 families since its creation nearly 60 ago.
“They are special people in our mind,” said David Riley, a member of Clearbrook’s board of directors. “This is just a way to say thank you.”
Clearbrook started in the mid-1950s as a small school in the barn of a Rolling Meadows church. It began as the vision of a group of Northwest suburban parents responding to the unmet educational requirements of children with special needs.
Its mission is to support and work with adults and children born with developmental disabilities, from autism to mental retardation to physical disabilities such as multiple sclerosis and some forms of paralysis.
Clearbrook currently serves roughly 3,000 individuals and their families, operating more than 45 facilities in 13 counties across the northern portion of the state. Riley said the organization is now expanding to serve some Naperville families, too.
Clearbrook provides in-home care, works with families to evaluate the client, and conducts after-school and adult programs with a range of services such as speech pathology and a customized goal plan for each client.
“The beauty of Clearbrook,” Riley said, “is that when you become a client, you are a client for life. The reality is Clearbrook clients are never going to be cured. What our donors do is a recognition that everyone deserved to have as happy and fruitful a life as possible.”