MARC Community Resources, Ltd. held its First Annual Gala Auction on November 19 at the Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown. The auction was hosted by local TV news anchor Joanne Nesti and Arlene Mazzotta of A.R. Mazzotta Employment Agency, with Auctioneer Bill Barrows and Emcee Don DeCesare of WMRD. The items offered ranged from exotic African safaris, Puerto Rican vacation resorts and guided newsroom tours (courtesy of Nesti) to the more typical paintings and handcrafts. “We have some wonderful gift baskets, jewelry, children’s things,” MARC’s Jane Carroll described. “It’s just a huge assortment, almost anything you can think of is there.” Aetna foundation, Wal-Mart, KGS Insurance Services, Middlesex Youth ARC and CL&P sponsored the auction to raise money for MARC’s new location in Cromwell. “It’s our very first [auction] and we’re really excited about it.” said Carroll. “We’re having wonderful response from our staff and from the community. We’re going to use the money to defray the cost of renovating the building because we needed to make it handicapped accessible.” The building, located at 421 Main Street, will house Vocational and Leisure Services for the organization, which provides special assistance to children and adults with cognitive disabilities in towns throughout Connecticut. The building also hosts the agency’s latest program, Saturday for Kids.
In addition to the purchase of the Cromwell property, MARC reached another landmark this year as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. An advertisement placed in the local newspaper by Renee Bolt was the starting point of the MARC organization. Bolt was searching for families that wanted to give their mentally retarded children more opportunities in life. Seven other families responded and together they successfully appealed to the Middletown Board of Education to allow their children to attend classes in the public schools. Inspired by this victory, the group became incorporated in 1956 as the Middletown Association of Parents and Friends of Retarded Children.
In the following decade, the organization continued to work towards improving the lives of the mentally handicapped. They began holding religious classes for children and opened preschool and day care programs. In 1971, they undertook a new endeavor, the volunteer group MYARC (Middlesex Youth Association for Retarded Citizens), under the supervision of Brother J. Robert Houlihan at Mercy and Xavier High Schools. The program, still active today, offers its adult participants two sessions each week. The dance therapy portion is held every Tuesday and allows the participants and volunteers (who are students from Mercy and Xavier) a fun way to interact while doing the Electric Slide or the Chicken Dance. A ceramics class is offered on Thursdays. The MYARC program endeavors to create a sense of accomplishment for both its participants and volunteers.
Following the success of MYARC, MARC launched a host of new programs throughout the eighties and nineties from new and ever-changing locations. In 1981, MARC’s building on 12 Fairview Street in Portland opened, and they kicked off a fund-raising campaign to “Put MARC on Wheels” for the purchase of a bus. The "Room to Grow" program was introduced in 1982 as a job assistance program for recent high school graduates. The Supported Employment Program followed in 1987, which matched MARC participants with area employers. They also opened group homes (including MARC II for women and MARC III) and an Opportunities for Older Adults Program for senior citizens with mental retardation. Programs for Home Ownership, Family Intervention, “Caring Families” (designed to increase donations for low-income households) were implemented in the nineties.
Today, the MARC group continues to work towards its original goal of providing empowerment and
choice to the hundreds of individuals with disabilities. Its Self-Advocacy and Individual Options programs are designed to foster a sense of independence among its participants, who, as a result of their particular disabilities, must constantly rely on others to help them through each day. The newest program, Saturday for Kids, focuses more on ensuring that participants fully enjoy their lives by providing social interaction and fun activities. MARC’s purpose is perhaps stated best in the words of its CEO, Elizabeth Werner. “We all need brick and mortar, a place to gather, a place to meet, a place to live—what we really need is a place, a place in the world where we are empowered to be all that we can be. That is our mission.”
