At every twist and turn of a college campus there are people that inspire growth within the community and strive to do their best while juggling a family and a job at the same time.
“My life consists of my friends, my family, my job and working with the Association for Retarded Citizens,” Harry Fullwood, professor of psychology said.
Fullwood has been a professor at Texas A&M-Commerce since 1968 and been working with the Association for Retarded Citizens (Arc).
“I have been training teachers to work with individuals with special needs since 1966,” Fullwood said. “There are different levels of mental disability, but my interest is in adult disabled individuals.”
The Association for Retarded Citizens is located in Hunt County in Greenville.
They do not have an official office currently, but the home office at the state level is in Austin.
“The largest and most effective office is in Dallas, Texas,” Fullwood said.
The Arc is a group known for working with the mentally disabled.
“The individuals being helped are developmentally disabled and have depressed in mental ability such as speech, language, intellect and social abilities, but they can be successful in the community,” Fullwood said.
In order to help the individuals they work with develop a roll within the community, the Arc provides an array of job opportunities, including positions at Brookshire’s and Wal-Mart.
“Every year we have a Christmas party and Halloween dance, and we try to get out in the community and do activities like go to the library or the park,” Fullwood said
Depending on a person’s level of disability, they have many daily activities to choose from.
“They can write letters, prepare meals, play games and pay bills. Some even get married,” Fullwood said.
The Arc is principally interested in people’s lives, how well they are accepted in the community and finding them employment and sheltered living.
Sheltered living usually refers to a Texas Intermediate Care Facility, also called a group home.
There can be up to eight individuals living in a home.
The normal routine is breakfast, chores and then to either work or attend a day care center, depending on the disability level of the person.
The best-case scenario for an individual with mental disabilities is to live semi-independently, but still be somewhat supervised because they are not able to travel alone or drive a car.
The Arc also helps with problems that the mentally disabled have no control over, a major one being exploitation.
“Years ago a person down the street from a group home was renting an individual in the home a broom or a hammer for $3-5 per use,” Fullwood said.
Exploitation was usually dealt with by telling the person to back off, which proved to be effective in most cases.
The law would only be brought in if the individual’s health, welfare or life was being threatened.
The Arc has yet to have the police brought into a situation, but has shown no reservations about doing so if the situation ever became severe enough.
One major goal of the Arc is to help entire families who have mental disabilities.
“If a parent moves into the community or births a child with a mental disability, the association provides parents with the information if the hospital does not,” Fullwood said.
The organization also provides services to parents that help them understand what is going on with their loved one.
“We house sit for the parents so they can take the child with them and go do something fun and sometimes baby-sit the child so the parents can go do their own thing,” Fullwood said.
Fullwood is chairperson of the information center, which offers literature to help parents understand what is going on and to decipher the medical records.
The members of the Arc come from a range of parents to professionals.
Eighty percent of the members are parents of individuals with special needs. The remaining percent include professionals and people who care.
The members are all people who want to help and make sure that the people with mental disabilities feel wanted in the community, loved and appreciated.
The Arc is completely a voluntary organization and has a president, vice president, board of officers, a secretary and a treasurer.
Officers and office positions are filled by holding elections within the community group.
“The people who are involved are there for the knowledge of knowing that they are helping people who need help and are not looking for recognition,” Fullwood said.
Anyone interested can get in contact with the Arc in Hunt County by contacting Teena Shipp at 903-455-6796 or by email at tshipp@arcofhuntcounty.org.