ARC History

Until the 1950's, few services were available for individuals with developmental special needs. Children routinely were denied access to education, adults were not offered vocational opportunities, and parents did not receive the support needed to assist them in meeting the challenges of raising a child with special needs.

ARC, originally standing for the Association for Retarded Citizens, was organized in 1950 by a small group of family members and friends of people with mental retardation. By the year 1987 this small group had grown into 1,300 state and location chapters with over 160,000 members nation wide and kept expanding to today encompassing more than 200,000 volunteers.

More than 30 years ago we obtained a Kennedy Foundation grant to help the Santa Rosa Recreation & Parks start a summer day camp. Each year we have raised funds for scholarships so that every child who can profit from the camp and wants it will do so.

This Agency for forty years was a member of state and national organizations whose services, interests and emphasis were on mental retardation. However, through the years our horizons have been lifted to embrace in our supports and service nearly every disability and chronic condition in human services.

In 1999, the ARC of Sonoma County merged with the Sonoma County Citizen Advocacy, Inc. After this merge it was decided the name Association for Retarded Citizens was no longer fitting to an organization that helped all disabilities. So the name was changed to reflect the new millennium. Thus, the Advocacy Resource Center was born.

Two years ago we began a public information effort through setting up tables at public events. This has enabled us to distribute a great deal of educational materials, refer people to services they did not know about and recruit volunteers. You can see us each Wednesday at the Santa Rosa Downtown Market.

A few years when another nonprofit agency was going out of business they asked us to take over a program entitled "Phase One." Phase One was a program to support families whose children had chronic medical conditions, learning disabilities, and developmental, physical disabilities and children with mental health diagnoses. We accepted the offer and have expanded the supports. We have recently changed the name to ARC FAMILY RESOURCE PROJECT as a reflection of identity with most family support services in this nation.
We are in process of merging Sonoma County F.E.A.T. (Families for Effective Autism Treatment) into the ARC. With their resource library of CD-ROM's, games and toys and Staff is preparing a Resource Guide to make available. We support the Tuesday Night Specials and Bob Burke's Kids social-recreation activities. We just started mailing meeting announcements for an Asperser's Syndrome support group and will help them with their activities. Our most recent efforts have been to assist two mothers of children with physical disabilities to have a four-week summer camp at Mary Hill School in Bennett Valley using "Conductive Education" methods.

This year, with a small United Way grant, we started a Hispanic Outreach effort. We have had difficulty getting it going, but since February we have been able to hire three part-time staff that is bilingual and bicultural Hispanic. They have helped us with our information tables, networking events, provided language support in medical settings on behalf of monolingual mothers who have given birth to children with disabilities. We have added Spanish language literature through both purchase and translation. Our Board and Staff have been diversified.

Today, children with developmental special needs are guaranteed a free and appropriate education, civil rights protections have been strengthened, and adults have opportunities to join in the mainstream of our communities as productive, participating citizens.

These changed have resulted from the combined advocacy efforts of hundreds of thousands of ARC volunteers. We are proud of these accomplishments, and, we're aware that much still needs to be done to ensure that services and opportunities continue to be developed so that all individuals with developmental special needs will have the opportunity to reach their greatest level of personal fulfillment and productivity. Then, at an appropriate time, to be able to retire with dignity and maintain a high quality of life.
We invite you to join with us in accomplishing these goals. With your help, we continue ready to serve.