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 Walt Franks |
One day, 45 years ago, a local cattle broker named Walter Franks took a drive up Highway 97 from his ranch, just south of Bend where Sunriver is now located.
A careful and considerate - some might say typical - cowboy, Franks slowed down as he passed by a crowd of parents and their children milling around their broken down vehicle on the side of the road.
"What's the problem?" he asked.
Well, so the story goes, they were on their way to a get-together at a makeshift "school" in somebody's home. The parents had organized their own cooperative school so their children could learn and play and socialize with one another, like other children without disabilities.
Franks noticed the children had developmental disabilities. But he was the kind of person who noticed "differences," not "defects." He wondered out loud why the parents had to provide their own special-needs school system? That's when one of the parents shocked him with the explanation: In Oregon, local school districts were not responsible for educating students with disabilities.
"What?! That's not right," Franks is recalled having said. Like a horse-kick to the head, he added in utter astonishment, "Everybody deserves an opportunity to go to school."
Filled with the spirit of those parents he met on the side of the road in fact, 1964, Franks rustled up 10 directors who shared his vision for a community that cares about its citizens with disabilities.
During the first year of the foundation, Franks anonymously made two donations totaling $100,000, for the architectural design & building located on 26 acres in east Redmond.
Dozens of local residents, businesspeople and service club members built the sombrero-shaped structure, free of halls, to accommodate 40 to 50 children, living, learning and socializing with staff and one another in classrooms, kitchen facilities, arts and crafts studios and a common multipurpose area. In 1967, the foundation added what may be the most important of its services for adults with disabilities - jobs. Adults with disabilities were offered paying jobs, tailored to their disabilities. This would be the future for the Opportunity Foundation.
Today, the Opportunity Foundation of Central Oregon is a thriving nonprofit organization with 350 employees and a $6.8 million annual budget. It provides homes, jobs in retail, manufacturing, and business services that are specially tailored for developmentally disabled clients in Jefferson, Crook and Deschutes counties.
"Work is key to developing personal responsibility and pride. With that paycheck, the people here can make their own budgets, pay bills, set goals and realize dreams, like going on vacation to Disneyland," says the Resource Developer for the Opportunity Foundation.
In addition to the three thrift stores, the Opportunity Foundation operates 8 group homes, an archipelago of assembly and packaging programs in Redmond, Bend, and Madras, a custodial services company, a wood mill, an ecycling program for electronic equipment, and a program providing alternatives to employment for people with disabilities.
Darrel Wilson, Executive Director states "Our story is your story. We are all fellow travelers on life's path. Disability is a fundamental part of all our lives. Sooner or later, almost every person will experience disability in very personal ways."
Wilson says "It is time to rethink disability, to resist stumbling into pity and shock".
"Pity is itself disabling for you, me, and for the person with the disability. Pity pushes away. It shuts down communication and creativity. People with disabilities do not want our pity - they want our respect.
"When we focus on a person's limitations, we miss what they can do. The real question is not what a person cannot do, but rather what they can do, with or without support, to reach their potential.
"The paradox is that through personal experience with disability, we grow to be more compassionate, more caring and loving. Ti is time to rethink disability, to recognize it as something that connects us with the most important parts of life. It doesn't get any better than that."
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