Arkansas Easter Seals Society

Agency Has Just Three Directors in 56 Years

Easter Seals Arkansas was founded in 1944 to provide education and therapy to children rehabilitating from polio.

The dreaded paralyzing disease has since been all but eliminated in the United States, but Easter Seals continues to serve disabled Arkansans of all ages through 17 different programs across the state.

It has had just three executive directors in its 56-year history.

Working with a 1999 budget of just over $9 million, 294 employees and 447 volunteers, Easter Seals provided services for 5,000 people last year.

In 1998, Easter Seals completed a 46,000-SF Children’s Rehabilitation Center to provide inpatient rehabilitation and special education services to 40 children with disabilities from all over the state. Also in 1998, the organization received a grant from the U.S. Head Start Administration to begin an Early Head Start Childcare Center for low-income children in Little Rock.

In February 1999, Easter Seals Arkansas launched its “Delta Project,” a multifaceted effort to train providers, identify and treat disabled children in the Arkansas Delta.

“Parents may not recognize a developmental delay at a year or two, where a trained professional might have recognized it much earlier,” says president and chief executive Sharon Moone-Jochums.

Easter Seals Arkansas recently received notice of nearly $1 million in funding from the federal Housing and Urban Development Department for construction of 18 apartments for disabled adults in west Little Rock. Easter Seals already runs a group living facility for 10 adults who need assistance with everyday activities, but this will be the agency’s first experiment with apartments for clients whose disabilities don’t prevent them from living on their own.

Moone-Jochums says, Easter Seals now is reaching out across the state.

“We have whole pockets of our state where there are not enough trained professionals to meet the need,” she says.