NORWAY — “Community inclusion is the key to enriching the lives of clients,” Priscilla Burnette of the Progress Center said.

At the 30-year-old organization created to help persons with disabilities live as independently as possible, Burnette said great strides have been made, but more can be done.

The move toward community inclusion was reinforced by the 1999 Supreme Court ruling in Olmstead v. L.C. that said, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the unjustified institutional isolation of people with disabilities was a form of unlawful discrimination.

“It’s the blending of community inclusion of individuals we support into mainstream community life,” Burnette said of the process to help persons with disabilities work and live in their community as freely as they are able to.

The Supreme Court ruling helped to bring about the closing of Pineland Hospital and Training Center in New Gloucester, Burnette said.

“The Americans with Disability Act and the Olmstead Decision created the basis of community inclusion, an idea and belief that has dramatically changed the lives of those who lived in social isolation, many who had given up all hope of ever enjoying the personal freedoms that we take for granted,” she said in a statement issued recently about the ruling’s effect today on Progress Center clients.

Community inclusion, she said, “is the belief that each and every one of us are included in the communities in which we live, work and recreate. That we all share common interests, rights, and interests that should be included in all that we do.”

Burnette said the Progress Center strives to insure that each person supported by its services, including individuals once confined year-after-year or to life in an institution, now has the opportunity to share in a meaningful community life, including physical, spiritual, cultural, employment and social integration without fear of prejudice, social isolation or discrimination.

“This responsibility is not taken lightly,” she said. “The Progress Center works with the greater Oxford Hills community on many levels as they continue to embrace the differences in people, rather than the exclusion of some because of their differences.”

Burnette said she is hoping a broader spectrum of the community embraces the idea and helps bring more Progress Center clients into the community.

She suggested some things people can do.

“It’s as simple as coming in with a photo album, telling them (clients) about your tripod or inviting us to share interests.”

Burnette said she is not sure the entire community is aware of the ways that Progress Center clients give back to the community from volunteering in the local hospital to simply making ribbons for monthly celebrations.

“One works at the town office. There’s an individual who cleans at Chandler Funeral Home and another volunteers at a hairdressers and Responsible Pet Care,” she said listing off the local places that the Progress Center clients volunteer or work.

“They do a lot,” she said.

Sharon Nightingale, the human resources specialist at Western Maine Health in Norway, said Bruce Coffin a Progress Center client, is a volunteer who, according to those who work with him, has learned to do many tasks over the years and become a much more confident individual.

In a recent hospital volunteer newsletter, staff member Fred Cummings said Coffin’s first volunteer job at Stephens Memorial Hospital was in September of 2008 when he started helping sort silverware in the kitchen.

“Over the years he became less shy and more confident in himself,” Cummings wrote. “He has learned to do so many tasks and he is doing them very well. As Bruce’s self-esteem developed, his desire to achieve grew. Bruce recently mentioned he would like to help Sue make sandwiches for patients. The camaraderie in working with all the kitchen crew has helped him mature so much. Bruce looks forward to every Wednesday.”

Burnette said the Progress Center is hoping to fill niches within local businesses for an hour or more of work for their clients.

“They are not disabled, but differently abled,” she said. “Everyone of us has a gift. Some are not as obvious as others.”

Burnette is available to provide more information at the Progress Center at 35 Cottage St. in Norway or by telephone at 743-8049, ext. 266.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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