Mrs. Butters always said that her role was to help parents by taking care of their disabled child when they had no other place to turn to. Helping parents was, therefore, a large part of her legacy.
Helping parents is still important to us and hopefully will be part of our long-term legacy. Our 4th capital campaign featured providing funds for parents who wanted to band together locally to improve services for their children and for others. We invested, at that time, $500,000 in local projects in 4 local community organizations spread throughout our territory. See Past Projects on this website for more information on the nature and scope of these projects.
Some time before 2008, the Foundation started to invest, through our public rehab partner the former CRDITED de la Montérégie-Est, in ongoing projects that would help parents raise and care for their disabled child within the family environment.
On an annual basis since, we have allocated funds for the purchase of specialized equipment for children living at home. The objective here was to provide targeted equipment that would facilitate community family outings without leaving the disabled child behind, and specialized communication equipment that would allow the disabled child to communicate with his family, friends and neighbors. Well over 50 families have benefited from this programme in the intervening years.
At the same time, the foundation invested $50,000 per year and now more recently $60,000 per year, in supporting the cost of children living at home to experience camp life, mostly in the summer, but occasionally during important periods of the year. These adventures stimulated the campers and challenged them with new and unique experiences, while at the same time, giving parents and siblings time to relax and reconnect. Close to 100 families have benefitted from this programme since its inception.
Since our creation in 1976, the Quebec Government has done a 180 degree turn in service for intellectually disabled and more recently autistic people, by closing institutions and providing services for families and disabled people in the community and at home. In earlier decades, parents were forced to give up their children; now the state encourages them to keep their children at home and in their communities. In this regard, the parents need sustained help. The public system cannot do it all.The Butters Foundation is committed to providing some of that help on a consistent basis. In our view, keeping disabled & autistic people at home is the best tonic for quality of life and happiness.
