Several months after the Meeting Street Center severed ties with Easter Seals, a Cranston agency serving people with disabilities has decided to become the Easter Seals new Rhode Island affiliate.
Administrators at CranstonArc said the partnership will help them expand its services throughout Rhode Island and also gives them a strong fund-raising arm to assist in its growth.
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“This move will give us more public awareness. People should know about the services that are available to them,” said Lesley Mellor, executive director of CranstonArc, which will now be known as Easter Seals Rhode Island/CranstonArc.
While Mellor sees the national organization as a means to expand services, Meeting Street officials said Easter Seals did the opposite for them.
Roger N. Begin, chairman of the board for Meeting Street, said Easter Seals restricted Meeting Street from serving people outside of Rhode Island, because it would interfere with other affiliates of Easter Seals in different states.
“We concluded that they no longer served the needs or interests of Meeting Street. The reason for disaffiliation was to pursue some strategic plans that would not be possible as an affiliate,” said Begin.
Meeting Street has been helping people with disabilities for 50 years.
Begin did say Easter Seals can be valuable to organizations looking to grow within a state by providing fund-raising advice and offering a network of clearinghouse information.
Easter Seals has 106 affiliates, with at least one in each state, and served more than one million people last year. The organization, founded in 1919, has the mission of helping people with disabilities gain greater independence by providing medical rehabilitation services, technological assistance as well as providing disability prevention, advocacy and public education programs.
CranstonArc, founded in 1965 by families of children and adults with mental retardation, also provides service and advocacy. Today, the group serves more than 300 families in Rhode Island by offering Creative Beginnings PreSchool and Kindergarten, The Cornerstone School, residential, employment and day services, recreation and respite.
CranstonArc started as the Cranston Chapter for Retarded Children. The “arc” in the current title stands for the Association of Retarded Citizens, which is no longer used.
James E. Williams, president of Easter Seals, said the organizations are a natural fit.
“We complement what they do and vice versa. CranstonArc adds value to the rest of our affiliates and we think we can learn from what they do,” Williams said.
The ability to raise funds will also be a key to the partnership on both ends. CranstonArc will have a well recognized name behind them in seeking help while Easter Seals will have a presence in a state where corporate sponsors exist.
“We have a lot of corporate partnerships in the area like Friendly’s and Century 21. All of whom are committed to better communities and want to be involved in an organization in their backyard,” Williams said. “We focus on keeping the money in the location where it was raised.”
He added that 90 percent of all funds raised locally stay in the communities where it was raised.
Williams said Easter Seals does a lot of advocacy work in Washington that could bring more federal funding to Rhode Island to be spent in helping people with disabilities.
“This is a win-win situation for both organizations. We are looking forward to serving the state of Rhode Island along with CranstonArc,” he added.
