Giving back to our Southeast Texas Community is at the heart of KFDM and DuGood Credit Union. From now until December 17th, we will introduce you to 12 local charities chosen this year because they embrace our core belief of people helping people. Today, we’re visiting the ARC of Greater Beaumont.
Executive Director Sarah Hardin says Arc of Greater Beaumont: “The ARC of Greater Beaumont is a non-profit that provides programs for adults and kids with disabilities here in our community. We do a lot of social and support activities. We help our families gain resources. We help our adults learn to be more independent and be involved in their community. The ARC has been here since about 2005. We had a group of concerned parents who were wondering, what’s next after high school. Their kids were getting older, and they were looking for those social and support opportunities. That how we came about. We started off with our adult programming, and were able to create those social opportunities in a safe environment where they could make new friends, see regular old friends, and learn new things and experience. We have expanded to Children and Family Services and offer things like our “Parents Night Out, where parents can get a break. Their kiddos can come up here and have some fun with other kids that are in similar situations. Then we have our self-advocates program, where we’re really equipping our adults with disabilities here in our area to be more active locally through volunteering, being active in our legislature, going to the state and meeting with our representatives and just learn how to live more independently. We don’t charge for any of the activities that we do. We have a few little things that are more expensive to put on. Generally, we don’t charge, so we really rely heavily on direct public support grant funding. We have two big fundraisers that we do during the year that really allows us to do all the things that we do, and so that’s why it’s so important for our community to support us and share in our mission and serve this great group of people here in the community. We couldn’t survive without volunteers. The huge reason we do as many activities is because of volunteers that have come up here. I guarantee there’s going to be DuGood employee two, three or four at every single event we have here…