For the second straight year, the ladies of the Ivy Circle Garden Club in Ocala donated their time and efforts to improve the landscaping around the ARC Marion campus.  Specifically, they spruced up the area surrounding Group Home 12 where several of our adult developmentally disabled clients live.  This is exactly the type of community involvement [...]

During the fall last year, we began a project within the ARC Marion arts & crafts classes where we converted some of the great original pieces of art into blank greeting cards.  Well, we are at it again with this year’s assortment of Christmas and Thanksgiving cards all produced by original artwork of the developmentally disabled clients [...]

Last Thursday, clients and staff at ARC Marion were going about their morning, business as usual, when the unusual happened.  While on break, a client in the Adult Day Training (ADT) job skills program got choked on a piece of food and started turning blue.  Staff immediately sprung into action preforming the Heimlich maneuver, life saving training each of [...]

“Tis the season to be merry and bright, so here are a few of the smiling faces seen at the recent ARC Marion client Christmas party.   May they bring you joy and happiness.  We hope that you and yours have the most blessed of Holiday seasons.

We’re doing a bit of a test around here to see the value of our blog.  If you are a frequent follower, you may have noticed we missed an entire week last week.  We’ll blame it on the busyness of the holiday season, but we have honestly decided to limit posting to once a week.  [...]

**In honor of Veteran’s Day, I asked a former employee and Viet Nam veteran, Frank Champ, to be our guest blogger today.  Here is his story.**
Back 14 years ago I was offered a position with an ARC in Manchester, CT.  When the CEO interviewed me she admittedly was impressed with my credentials and began the [...]

ARC Marion is doing something for the first time that we hope is a huge success.  It was birthed out of a conversation that has lead to what it is today- a new project for ARC Marion clients to rally around and support.  In speaking with a local businessman about Christmas gifts for his clients [...]

Coming up on November 19 is one of the can’t miss events of the year in our community- our Elegant Evening of Thanks event.  This marks the 12th year for the annual community celebration, and year after year it has grown by leaps and bounds.  This year will be no different.  What used to be [...]

Hot off the presses, or at least new to a Web site near you is the current issue of ARC Marion and the Heart of Florida Hope Foundation’s The Point newsletter.  Please check out what all is going on with our great organizations by clicking here.  If you would like to be on our regular email [...]

For the third straight year ARC Marion client artwork will be featured in the children’s workshop area of the Fine Arts for Ocala Fall Arts Festival.  Ever since we started putting art in the exhibit, the developmentally disabled clients at ARC Marion have been so excited to work on projects all year long in hopes [...]

All of the clients who attend ARC Marion are fascinating and unique individuals.  I would like to focus on one remarkable lady who is intellectually disabled and legally blind.  I’ve always heard that if you are lacking in one of your five senses, then all of your others are magnified.  I would definitely say that [...]

When working daily with the developmentally disabled you see a wide array of successes and challenges.  We know there are some cases where an individual’s level of care and quality of life gets better, but to an outsider it may appear that no real success is occurring.  However, there are many examples individuals whose lives [...]

One week ago today it became official.  The United States Congress has now passed legislation the removes the term “mental retardation” from all federal laws.  Now all existing education, health and labor laws will change the phrase “mentally retarded” to “an individual with an intellectual disability.”  Though it may seem a bit too politically correct, [...]

As the 2010 United Way campaign gets underway in our community, the clients and staff at ARC Marion were proud to participate in the campaign kick-off yesterday that was a bit unorthodox.  Instead of the usual meeting of business leaders and agencies over breakfast or lunch with a speaker, announcement of the campaign goal, and [...]

Over the summer, we launched a new marketing endeavor called “The Point” to try to capture the attention of those in our community who may not know that much about who we are or what we do.  Now we’re taking it a step further in offering special one hour tours highlighting the ARC Marion campus [...]

In yet another great story about our local community embracing those with disabilities with fervor and enthusiasm, I am so happy pleased with another story I read recently in our local newspaper.  A dance troupe that assembled last fall includes five dancers with Down syndrome ranging in age from 11 to 27.  All of the [...]

For news you can use, you might want to have a little more information about ARC Marion, and what’s been going on in our neck of the woods.  Sure we post blogs on here all the time about various pertinent and not so important things, but if you want to take the time to see [...]

In April and May ARC Marion launched a new type of campaign than had ever been done before in the non-profit sector of our local area.  Around town, red exclamation points began popping up.  In our local Ocala Magazine, in the Family Times Magazine, on billboards both digital and permanent, on Ocala4sale.com and on business [...]

What would losing $15,000 a year do to you?  Knowing present economic situations across the country, it’s easy for someone to understand what it’s like to lose a job or have hours cut back, lose your benefits, live month to month and have all of your finances in turmoil.  Picture a similar scenario for someone who [...]

Once again, those who support ARC Marion and the Heart of Florida Hope Foundation’s annual Hog for Hope events have come through in a big way, and we simply want to say thanks! 
Whether you own a business that sponsored us, or you live in the Marion County area and were able to attend our events, [...]

Yesterday was a new adventure for us at ARC Marion, when we welcomed four area rock-n-roll and punk bands made up of teenagers for a battle-of-the-bands type competition.  Essentially, during our Hog for Hope events, we have this enormous tent in the field for nearly two weeks and had nothing planned to do with it.  [...]

In Tuesday’s blog I mentioned the link between Alzheimer’s and Down Syndrome that is so clearly predominant.  ARC Marion has 50 clients who live in our care 24/7 in group homes around our community, and many of them are Down’s clients.  Of those, at least a dozen have been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, even at [...]

It was in October that we first told you the story about a former ARC Marion Early Intervention Program student giving back to the EIP by building a playset for his Eagle Scout project.  Well, just last week, our local newspaper published the story about Garrett Jackson and another student, Matthew Winfree, who both chose [...]

The last couple of posts I’ve made refer to parents holding their developmentally and intellectually disabled children back from activities and participating in society as a whole at times.  The segregation has not only impacted the lives of those with disabilities, but it has impacted communities of people who don’t quite know how to act [...]

April is autism awareness month, and I can think of only a few causes that have caught on as quickly as the color blue and the blue puzzle pieces representing Autism Speaks, an international organization of advocacy and research for the disease.  The Empire State building turned “blue” last week in honor of the month, [...]

Day in and day out I have the opportunity to witness little miracles, and by “little” I mean in the literal sense as the children about whom I’m speaking are all under the age of three.  In the ARC Marion Early Intervention Program(EIP), children with varying intellectual and developmental disabilities attend classes five days a [...]

For months this blog has been devoted to the special people in this world who are developmentally disabled.  Though they may not look the same, talk the same or act the same as you, they are real, genuine individuals who care about their work, their play and their communities.
There’s another group of people who deserve [...]

For the second November in a row, the clients, staff, family and friends of ARC Marion are collecting  nonperishable food items for Interfaith Emergency Services  food pantry in Ocala.  Last year, it was a developmentally disabled ARC Marion client who suggested we do something in the community to help others in need.  At that same time, our local [...]

I am so proud of the individuals at ARC Marion who come here to fulfill the mission: to live, work and play to their fullest of their abilities.   Each day 166 developmentally disabled clients attend the Adult Day Training workshop and are given the opportunity to choose how they want to spend their day.  They [...]

ARC Marion, established in 1959, is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization with the mission: to create opportunities for persons with disabilities to live, work and play to the fullest of their capabilities in Marion County.  ARC stands for Advocacy Resource Center.  We serve over 250 clients annually and are governed by a volunteer Board of [...]