Hattie Larlham

Hattie Larlham is a nonprofit organization that creates opportunities for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization is headquartered in Twinsburg, Ohio. Services encompass medical, vocational, recreational and residential, including foster care and respite/home care services. Hattie Larlham provides residential care to both children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.[1]

Hattie Larlham administers residential care for children with disabilities at the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities in Mantua, Ohio. Adult residential care is dispersed across several community homes located throughout Northeast Ohio.[11]

Hattie Larlham provides work training to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities through its social enterprises businesses, including Hattie's Café & Gifts, Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding, Hattie's Gardens and Hattie's Food Hub. Employees earn minimum wage.[12]

Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities

Hattie Larlham provides care for the most medically fragile people with disabilities that it serves at the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities in Mantua, Ohio.[11] In 2008, Hattie Larlham completed a three-year, $16-million dollar renovation and expansion of the Center.[13]

Among its features, the Center has a theater room, a warm-water pool, and a multisensory room, as well as a wheelchair-accessible outdoor playground and indoor play space.[14]

Among the specialized services Hattie Larlham delivers at the Center, licensed therapists perform on-site physical, occupational and speech therapy to residents.[15]

Hattie Larlham uses physical therapy to develop mobility in residents.

Hattie Larlham's occupational therapy focuses on movements that improve residents’ ability to carry out daily living activities such as playing with adapted toys, self-feeding, bathing and dressing. Some occupational therapy is performed in the on-site pool, including passive aquatic therapy exercise. Therapists lift the residents into and out of the water with a Hoyer lift that is attached to the pool.

Through speech therapy, Hattie Larlham helps residents develop communication skills. This therapy is also used to determine safe food consistencies for oral intake. Some residents are evaluated for olfactory and taste stimuli as well.

Hattie Larlham's Nutrition Services department and speech-language pathologist prepare meals for residents at the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities that they customize to meet the nutritional needs of each resident.[16]

In addition to delivering these services, the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities is an approved pediatric ventilator care provider by the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities. The ventilator program is intended to be a transition from hospital to home for children dependent on mechanical ventilation. While at the Center, children in the ventilator program participate in activities that include attending school, physical and speech therapy, Hattie's Creative Arts, swimming and sensory exploration.[17]

In 2014, Hattie Larlham upgraded to a new bulk oxygen supply system at the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities. With a 1,500 gallon main tank and a 260-gallon reserve tank, the system guarantees consistent oxygen supply for children and adults with chronic respiratory issues.[18]

Beyond medical care, therapy, nutritional services and ventilator services, Hattie Larlham facilitates socialization opportunities for people with developmental disabilities at the Center. In the spring, the organization hosts a themed prom for residents. The 2014 theme was Willy Wonka, and the 2015 theme was Harry Potter. Every Christmas, Hattie Larlham arranges for the children at the Center to meet Santa Claus.[16]

Additionally, Hattie Larlham also brings in volunteers to the Center to interact with the residents. The organization also facilitates a card buddies program by which volunteers send greeting cards and postcards to people with developmental disabilities at Hattie Larlham's residential facilities.[19] In 2013, volunteers dedicated 8,595 hours to the Center.[20]

Hattie's Creative Arts

Hattie Larlham Creative Arts gives participants with intellectual and developmental disabilities the opportunity to communicate through artistic expression.[21] Participants work with trackers (professional artists). The trackers become an extension of the artist by asking a series of yes-or-no questions that allow the tracker to carry out the specific intent of each artist. Through the process, participants improve their ability to communicate.[22]

The artists receive all proceeds from the sales of their artwork. Pieces of art from the program have sold for as much as $2,000.

The artwork is also displayed at various events, galleries, and exhibitions each year. Works from Creative Arts have appeared at the Eells Gallery at Blossom Music Center, the Taste of Hudson and the Eden Art Fest in Naples, Florida, among other locations.

In 2013, artwork from Hattie Larlham Creative Arts was juried into the Orange Park Art Festival in Jacksonville, Florida, and into the Gulf Coast Fine Art Festival in Fort Myers, Florida, solely on its merits with no special consideration given to the fact that the artists had developmental disabilities.[23]

On March 15, 2013, the Naples Art Association allocated space in its main gallery to host a special reception for Hattie Larlham Creative Arts in Naples, Florida.[24]

Later in 2013, artwork from Hattie Larlham Creative Arts was featured at the University Hospitals Humphrey Atrium Gallery. The exhibition was the fourth Hattie Larlham Creative Arts show sponsored by University Hospitals.[25]

In August 2015, Hattie's Creative Arts developed a presence at the Summit Artspace. Hattie's Creative Arts worked with the Akron Area Arts Alliance to develop the 596 square-foot space on the third floor of the Summit Artspace building.[26][27]

Hattie's Café & Gifts

Hattie's Café & Gifts is a cafe located in Canal Place in Akron that employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The cafe sells fair trade coffee, fresh baked goods, sandwiches and gifts.[28]

Hattie's Café & Gifts finished in the top five of voting for the best coffee shop in the Akron-Canton area on the Fox 8 Hotlist in 2009. Two years later, Hattie's Café & Gifts was named the Hudson Business of the Year. In 2014, Hattie's Café & Gifts Bakery was nominated in the 2014 Beacon's Best Annual Contest in the Best Bakery/Cakes category.[29]

Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding

Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding is a pet boarding operation with locations in Cleveland, Ohio, North Canton, Ohio and Twinsburg, Ohio. These facilities offer day care and long-term boarding for dogs, as well as grooming services. Employees with disabilities care for the animals as they work alongside professional job coaches.[30][31]

Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding began with a location in Green, Ohio and expanded to a second site in Twinsburg, Ohio in August 2010.[32] In May 2011, the Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding in Green moved to a larger facility near the Akron-Canton Airport in North Canton, Ohio.[33]

A third Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding opened near Cleveland, Ohio on May 14, 2012. The 5,300-square-foot facility is the largest Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding to date.[34] It is located just two miles from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and within walking distance of the Brookpark Road Rapid Transit Authority (RTA) station.[35]

In 2010, Hattie's Doggie Day Care & Boarding finished in the top spot of the Best Boarding category in the Fox 8 Akron-Canton Hotlist, as voted by the community. In 2014, Hattie's Doggie Daycare & Boarding was nominated in the 2014 Beacon's Best Annual Contest in the Best Boarding and Best Grooming categories.[36]

Hattie's Gardens

Hattie's Gardens is a work training program that employs adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The employees with disabilities learn sustainable, chemical-free growing practices such as crop rotation to prevent soil depletion, composting, using beneficial insects to manage crop-damaging insects, spreading mulches to suppress weeds and using disease-resistant cultivators.

Hattie's Gardens maintains garden locations at Old Trail School in Bath, Ohio and the Akron Zoo in Akron, Ohio. Both gardens are organically certified by the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA).[37]

Hattie's Gardens at Old Trail School is a collaboration between Hattie Larlham, Old Trail School and the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. More than 100 guests and dignitaries attended an unveiling ceremony for the garden on May 16, 2013.[38][39] In addition to employing people with developmental disabilities, Hattie's Gardens at Old Trail School serves as a learning center for Old Trail School students and engages them in the entire food cycle. Old Trail School also serves produce from Hattie's Gardens in school lunches.[40]

A little less than a year after the garden at Old Trail School opened, Hattie Larlham officially announced Hattie's Gardens at the Akron Zoo in April 2014.[41][42] The garden was formally unveiled at a morning press conference and an evening ribbon cutting on September 23, 2014. To create the garden, Hattie Larlham turned vacant lots owned by the zoo into sustainable gardening space.

According to a press release by Hattie Larlham, the partnership between the two organizations began through a shared vision to make fresh, local food more readily accessible to surrounding residents. Hattie Larlham also cited that Hattie's Gardens at the Akron Zoo further integrates people with developmental disabilities into the community.[43]

Hattie's Food Hub

In November 2014, the Plain Dealer reported that Hattie Larlham would open a North East Ohio Food Hub and Workforce Development Center near the site of Hattie's Gardens at the Akron Zoo.[44] In the summer of 2015, Hattie Larlham officially broke ground on Hattie's Food Hub.[45][46]

Hattie's Food Hub held an official grand opening on June 23, 2016. Located in the Cedar Douglas neighborhood of Akron, the 4,400 square-foot facility has a grocery market open to the public, a community meeting space and a commercial processing kitchen. Hattie's Food Hub provides work training to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in an integrated work setting. Employees prepare and sell fresh produce grown at Hattie's Gardens and by Northeast Ohio farmers.[47][48]

Hattie's Food Hub sells produce in an area that was previously classified as a food desert, meaning no fresh produce or food was available within a one-mile radius.[49] Free cooking demonstrations and classes are available at the location on a regular basis.[50]

Constant Companions

Constant Companions is a Hattie Larlham program that improves the lives of people with disabilities through contact with animals. People with disabilities learn life skills while developing a bond with and learning about the animals they care for.[51]

Constant Companions maintains locations in Green, Ohio, Twinsburg, Ohio, Evendale, Ohio, North Canton, Ohio, Bedford Heights, Ohio and Middleburg Heights, Ohio.[52]

In 2009, both Hattie Larlham Doggie Day Care & Boarding and Constant Companions were recognized with the Green Chamber of Commerce Vision Award for the programs’ accomplishments in the community.[53]

Volunteering

In 2010, volunteers contributed more than 13,010 hours toward the mission of Hattie Larlham.[54]

Volunteers regularly assist the organization with special events, fundraisers, landscaping, home improvement projects, recreational activities, administrative tasks, and friendship volunteer opportunities.

In 2008, The Center for Community Solutions selected Hattie Larlham volunteer, Patricia Cole, as one of Greater Cleveland’s “Most Treasured Volunteers.” Cole, who has Asperger's syndrome, volunteered more than 100 hours a year at Hattie Larlham, assisting others with disabilities.[55]

Many of Hattie Larlham's student volunteers come from Kent State University. In 2009, Kent State University honored Hattie Larlham as an “Outstanding Community Partner” for providing Kent State students with volunteer opportunities.