By Stephen Vance, Staff
For 60 continuous years, Community Living Meaford has provided services to the developmentally challenged, and on Sunday, August 30, the organization will host a community celebration at the Rotary Harbour Pavilion.
Community Living Meaford was established in February, 1955, after the Kent Women’s Institute saw a need for a separate school system for the developmentally handicapped children of the community.
“The Women’s Institute called a general meeting, inviting the other five institutes that existed in the area, as well as the various service clubs and organizations. The meeting was held in the old Legion building, which later housed the first school for developmentally handicapped children. This building was formerly the residence of the first teacher of the school, Mrs. Kay Butchart, and was situated where the present day post office and municipal offices stand,” reads a history of the organization.
The school had an initial enrolment of five students. The first teacher, Kay Butchart, is remembered by the glowing words of Mrs. Alice Noble: “Her dedication to the children, the wealth of understanding she displayed until her retirement in 1968, is something that would be hard to duplicate.”
In 1964, with the help of the Meaford Kinsmen and the generous support of individuals who contributed to the Flowers of Hope campaign, the school moved from the old Legion building to the two-room Gravel Road school, which housed the woodworking division of the Kay Butchart Workshop and the administration offices. The move to this new location provided additonal classroom space as well as a playing field. The school served the area bounded by Woodford on the west, Markdale and Walters Falls on the south, Heathcote, Clarksburg and Thornbury on the east, and had seventeen students enrolled by 1967. In January 1969, the school came under the administration of the Grey County Board of Education.
In the late Sixties, the Association realized that there was a need for some sort of continuation once the children’s school days were over. The Association applied to the Ontario Association for the Mentally Retarded (later changed to the Ontario Association for Community Living and then Community Living Ontario) for a Sheltered Workshop Charter.
In the early 1980s the organization opened its first group home after a study found that as many as 65 clients could benefit from the benefits of developing independence, and an increase in competence for making their own decisions that appropriate accommodations could help nurture. By the end of the decade, the organization had opened three group homes.
The organization continued to grow through the 1990s and into the new millennium. In November of 2009, a lot was purchased on Union Street, and plans were drawn up for a new four bedroom home with two one-bedroom apartments in the basement. Construction began in spring of 2010, with the first tenants moving in by the autumn of the same year.
The August 30 celebration will take place from noon until 3 pm at the Rotary Harbour Pavilion, and will include a barbecue by donation, free games and children’s activities – including a bounce castle – as well as activities hosted by the Meaford Public Library.
