This is Gulf Coast Life Im Mike Kiniry thanks for joining us.

The Americans with Disabilities Act or Ada was passed in 1990.

It's the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life.

36 years before the Ada, during a time when public schools were not even required to educate kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities, so many of these kids were institutionalized.

A group of parents in Fort Myers came together to create what they called LARC, which would work to empower and support young people with disabilities to achieve their full potential.

LARC has continued that mission and has expanded and grown over the decades.

Today, they serve about 300 individuals and their families through programs and services that include adult day training through the lab program that stands for Learn and Become in a culinary training program, and more.

They also operate two residential homes that teach life skills, including meal prep, homemaking skills, and personal hygiene.

On September 1st, they're hosting an event called Exceptional Employers of Southwest Florida at Collaboratory in downtown Fort Myers.

It will highlight LARC's workforce development efforts through the lab program, and how they can help solve some workforce development problems that we face here in Southwest Florida.

To get a preview of it and learn about everything they do, I'm joined by their executive director, Angela Katz.

Welcome to the show, Angela.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

So you haven't been on the show before we established that.

So tell us just a bit about yourself and your background.

You've got deep roots here.

I do.

I am a fifth generation native for here in Fort Myers, so I always tease big risk taker.

Never really left the area, but very proud to do the work that I do.

And I've been at LARC for ten years.

It really started in development in the fundraising side of things.

After leaving and retiring from corporate America, I thought I was going to retire and entered into nonprofit work, which I found a second career.

That is absolutely I just am in love with and I'm in love with the people.

They're just amazing.

So where I thought that my career was taking a different path, I was introduced to this remarkable population and thought, they deserve so much in life and in in our community, in the community that I love.

And how can I be a part of that?

You know, I was thinking that you probably had been through the nonprofit world throughout your entire career, but you said you came from the corporate world.

When you turn to the nonprofit world, was there something about what LARC does with developmental disabilities people, or was it just the nonprofit that you wound up at?

It was actually I started with another organization and then went out into consulting work.

And so then was with LARC, was working with LARC through my consulting work that I was doing, and really just believed that they needed so much more than they were getting and was working with the executive director on helping LARC really grow and get the exposure that they needed, and to help the individuals get more, receive more services and to expand and really wanted to be a part of that work and again, really felt they deserved more in thought that I could some time to doing that.

And here I am ten years later.

Explain what LARC is not as the executive director, but I mean, you are the executive director, but as if you met somebody out, like at a party and they said, oh, LARC, what's that?

Just put it into simple terms.

LARC is a training center for success, and we operate off of a five acre campus that's all designed around helping individuals with unique abilities maximize their independence and employment success.

Where's the campus?

It's near downtown Fort Myers, in the corner of Hanson and Evans.

It's five acres, so that's our home base.

And that's where the adult day training program happens in the lab program.

And then we have community support services program that that take place out and about in the community, helping individuals live independently, work independently.

And then we have two residential homes.

Both we have two residential homes.

Both are located in Cape Coral.

And those are relatively small meaning meaning the number of people who live there.

I think it's like six.

Correct, six people at each home.

How much greater is the possible people, you know?

How many people could you be serving if you could expand your services with no constraint?

I mean, is the need for greater here in Lee County in southwest Florida.

There are so many people that are not receiving services.

Many individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities rely on state funding, the eye budget, Medicaid waiver funding, and they are on wait lists.

There are hundreds of people in Lee County on the waitlist, thousands statewide.

So if resources were never limited and we could do all the work that we possibly could do, we would continue to be up.

We would never run out of people that need our services.

I told you, I went back and listened to the show I did with Kevin Lewis in 2020, and at the time, Florida ranked 50th when it came to states in terms of per capita spending for people in this population.

Has it gotten any better since then?

A little bit, I think we're about 44 now.

And then the Florida Chamber of Commerce just announced that Florida ranks, I think, 14th in economy in the world.

So here you have a state that has this amazing economy.

Yet our individuals with disabilities are really poorly funded.

It doesn't really make sense.

Like I said, I talked to Kevin and we went through a deeper history on LARC.

And I will link that for listeners on the web post for this show.

So we don't have to go down that rabbit hole now.

But like I said in the intro, it was founded in 1954 and you're you're fifth generation.

I mean, 1954.

Fort Myers was a different world, the 1919 94 or 2026 Fort Myers.

And that strikes me as something that was fairly forward thinking for that group of parents back then.

Absolutely.

I mean, talk about pioneering something that had not been done.

We were one of the very first agencies in the state of Florida and the United States to do this work.

So at a time when children were not not educated, but encouraged to be institutionalized for this one young mom to go to our superintendent of schools and say, my daughter deserves an education.

And he said, okay, round up some kids, some excuse me, round up some kids and some money in a place and I'll give you a teacher.

And she did, but she had to knock on doors to do it.

Nobody knew where the other kids lived.

So she rounded up more kids, raised some money, and we started LARC in the Sunday school rooms of Riverside Baptist Church.

By the late 50s, we had outgrown that location in the Lee County School District, leased us the property where we are today.

Been there since when?

Then?

19.

Well, late 50s.

So we've been we've been in the community since 1954, but we've been on that campus since the late 50s.

At one point, I was doing the reading through the research because I live over in that end of town.

And so you were at that church, and then at one point you even expanded into Terry Park.

And so it's it's just a deep part of Lee county's history that we can, I think, be proud of.

It is.

And I mean, it just goes to show you that we would we would burst at the seams every time we had a new place because the demand was that much.

And people wanted to have their children, families wanted to have their children treated equally.

And they knew long before anybody else that their children were quite capable.

Any idea if LARC became a model for other communities in the decades between founding and the ADA passage.

I believe they did.

I believe that LARC paved the way for for many agencies across the state and even locally, because we've been doing this work here, it really has helped to really embrace other agencies that can come in and do similar work and and help to continue to educate our community and to provide a community that finds this population to be valued and to, you know, there are neighbors, there are there are future leaders there.

There are future workers.

So you join LARC around 2016 if I've got it right.

Yes.

What's happening there now that.

What that wasn't happening there then.

So we have really changed the structure on how we deliver services.

So our lab program was launched in 2019.

And this is a curriculum that is very experientially hands on.

Our individuals will attend classes that could be academic.

It could be recreation, leisure, community based.

It's really they tell us what they want to learn and what kind of classes are happening.

This morning we had Zumba, which is really fun class for all of us to kind of try to sneak into.

That explains the scope of what we're talking about here.

I mean, it's anything to help them live their best lives.

So they attend classes.

They our programs are happening Monday through Friday from 9 to 3.

Some individuals will come five days, some just a couple of days.

Sometimes that's their goal, and sometimes it's the funding that prevents them from attending or participating in more programs.

But you know, that is that is a different that is a different type of program service delivery than we did prior to that.

And we also just opened our culinary training kitchen, which is amazing facility.

It's $1 million commercial kitchen, a 16 week curriculum for individuals to transition into a career in food service.

When I talked to Kevin six years ago, they were still aspiring to that kitchen, so I was glad to see that it had come to fruition.

Yes, it was a labor of love.

It took some time.

We had little pandemic in there that kind of slowed us down a little bit, but the vision was always there.

You know, when we talked last time, it was right after the pandemic, and it's hard to remember now, but there was a time when we didn't take doing things by zoom for granted like we do now, and Kevin was saying then that it was helping LARC be able to expand its services, some because there were certain things that could be done through a screen that just were unthinkable before.

Is that still playing out?

Is some of the lab learning, teaching how to use things like zoom?

I mean, where does that all fit in?

Is that an upside to the pandemic?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it was very, very interesting.

We were back then, they were attending classes via zoom and now the proficiency and just technology.

And that's one of our labs that we have is our smart technology lab.

And it's all about teaching this population how to thrive in a world that's really forced us to lean in and rely on technology.

And if you think about our population and if they don't learn how to navigate technology the way we do, then are we do we just turn back the hands of time?

I mean, are they going to get left behind?

So it really did help us advance those efforts because of that.

The community support services, what does that entail?

That's the team that delivers services out in the community.

So these are individuals that live in the in the community and need some just some additional support or want to work in the community.

So our team walks alongside life with them.

Some of our individuals rent their own apartments, they own their own condos, own their own homes, and they just need some supported.

They just need the services of our supported living team.

We make sure that they are getting to their doctor's appointments, taking their medication.

We provide financial oversight, everything that they need to do just to remain independent in the community.

We just make sure that they are safe in doing that, and then they also help individuals find meaningful employment in the community, and they work with employers to sometimes help, you know, make that employment match, but also work with the employer.

So it's successful.

That team also delivers our youth program services.

So when students are out of school and they have intellectual developmental differences, we provide career readiness camps and other programs for the students to be able to take advantage of when school's out.

So tell us about the event on September 1st.

This is actually my favorite event.

It is free to attend.

We encourage business owners, hiring professionals, HR professionals, anyone who is interested in learning more about hiring individuals with unique, with unique abilities to come and attend and learn more.

Not from us.

Not from LARC.

LARC is not the speaker.

We have panelists that represent different industries, and we have them speak to the the advantages, the challenges, just it's a really authentic, raw conversation with the business owners or the hiring managers on what that looks like for a business.

I looked through the people who are going to be talking, and so they're business owners.

Are they people who have come to LARC in the past and said, I want to partner with you somehow or, or or does LARC I mean, how does it work in terms of is it formalized or is it informal?

Great question.

It's a little bit of both.

Sometimes businesses come to us.

They've they've heard, they've learned, they see our Facebook or whatever.

They're asking questions.

A lot of it is our staff out there visiting businesses and really saying, can I, can I teach you?

Can I share with you?

Do you need good employees?

Can I share more of how I can help you fill these gaps?

We're not asking businesses to create a position or to make some sort of exception.

We're talking about positions that are open that they have trouble with filling or keeping people employed, that that we're just talking about those existing positions.

Can we share with you an untapped workforce that may not only be able to fill that, but bring a lot of other benefits that you're not even maybe considering.

The the documentation that Miriam provided me alluded to, some economic economists have pointed to certain sectors of the South.

I'm trying to talk, in their jargon, Southwest Florida workforce needs.

I mean, where is the biggest overlap between what we need and the kinds of things that people who you're working with can do?

I think it's a little bit of all of it.

We have right now, we have 83 businesses who are employing individuals served by large, and that's a broad range of it's a broad range of positions.

So some of them are intro level.

Some of them are very technical.

It we don't if you have an open position here at work, we don't just automatically fill it with just anyone.

We we find somebody who has the skill set, the desire, the goal, the interest.

So that way it's something that's beneficial for them but also for you.

So it really just depends.

We might have a business call us and say we need employees, but if we don't have an individual that has an interest in that particular field or job at that moment, then that's something we will look for to fill that position.

So it's some of businesses coming to us, and it's us going out and talking to businesses about their open positions.

Has that culinary kitchen brought anybody out into the workforce so far?

So we finished our first cohort.

And and that was in July.

And it was so exciting because as we mentioned, it was a long time that we had had this dream.

And we are working on placing those individuals.

So we are that that there is a process there.

But we have two that will be moving into food service careers.

One is going on to technical college, and that's really a wonderful partner that we have as well, because some of our individuals need to step into our program first to it's rigorous and to get acclimated and ready for the next level.

And then there are some individuals that go right to the technical schools culinary program, and the technical school will refer them and say, this year program is actually a better fit for them now.

So we have one that we've prepared for the next, you know, her next career in technical school.

And then we have one individual who is still deciding where he wants to go to work.

The documentation that Miriam provided me mentioned a young man named Corey who works at Topgolf.

What can you tell us about Cory?

Corey is amazing.

All of our employees are, you know, they're they're all amazing.

And when you see them go in and not only get the job, I think that that's some things we have to step back and think about, because it might be easier for you and I to go and interview and get a job, and we can maybe be, you know, selective or maybe we can get away with a little bit more because we're not as worried about getting the next job, but the pride that they have when they get that job that they just want to prove themselves.

And so when you when you see them in their their smiles and their confidence, they're just so proud in that's Corey.

And not everyone who you work with are able to end up in a job.

So you do have people who just need as much care as they're able to get, probably for the rest of their life.

And that's also something that you guys do.

That is correct.

And so we we actually there are some individuals that will need to really be in our program Monday through Friday for the rest of their life.

Like you say, they need the supervision, they need the guidance.

But then we also offer opportunities for vocational training and opportunities on our campus.

So we do have a woodshop.

We've been operating the woodshop since the 60s, so we have individuals who could work in the woodshop and build custom products.

So survey steaks, custom pallets, things like that.

We have an engraving enterprise that we can engrave special, you know, whether they're gifts or for business or personal.

We partner with businesses that do package and assembly.

And so these individuals may not be work ready for the community, but they still might be able to earn income by having, you know, just a highly supervised work workspace.

And that's kind of what's neat about the culinary program as well.

Our culinary program, our first cohort were four students.

Our second one is five students.

This isn't about us filling, you know, a classroom or a space with a bunch of individuals and trying to get them all to our level.

It's about us meeting every one of those individuals needs.

So right now in our day program, we have about 129 individuals enrolled.

And we're working on each individual goal, not just 2 or 3 goals.

So we might be working on 200, 300 different goals at a time because we are meeting the people where they are and what they want to do and what what their needs are.

How big is your staff and how many volunteers are a part of that team?

So we have 52 staff members and then we have volunteers on a regular basis.

There's probably about a dozen that will come in on a weekly basis and assist in classrooms, in the woodshop, help with clerical help with clerical items, things like that.

And then there's opportunities for special events and things like that or holidays.

We are known as the happiest block in Fort Myers.

So we we love to celebrate.

So we always have a lot of volunteers that will help us make every holiday special and fun.

How are you funded and how much of the funding comes from the community, and how how much of it comes from various, you know, funding sources?

94% of the individuals we serve rely on eye budget Medicaid waiver funding, and that's the funding that we had just talked about a little bit earlier.

Unfortunately, because of where Florida ranks, that only reimburses us about $0.54 on the dollar.

So we are constantly looking to bridge and braid together to to bring all bring all of this magic to life.

So we have a wonderful partnership with Lee County, which is the Lee County has a grants program, United Way.

And then we seek, you know, support from foundations across the state, across the United States and private funders.

We could not do this without the support of our community.

Just like back in 1954, it took a community to come together to make it happen.

And it still does today.

When I talk to Kevin in 2000 or 2020, he was dreaming up a kitchen.

It's a kitchen now.

What are you dreaming up now?

Is there anything you guys have on your on your on your horizon if things progress as planned?

Well, we are embarking on a $5.7 million expansion right now.

Some of that is hardening some of the existing buildings, beautification.

We are because our five acre campus has been evolving for 72 years.

It's kind of like the house that's been built on and built on.

So we're needing to make some some differences in accessibility and things like that.

We will be building a residential home on the campus, so there'll be a third residential home, and then we will also be building an 8000 square foot building to expand our programing.

And that building is being built to hurricane shelter standards.

And that building will be the first shelter, specialized shelter for individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities in Southwest Florida.

And that is very, very important because our population, when you talk special needs shelters, you might think that that's their shelter.

And it's not because they're not medically necessary, they're not on oxygen and things like that.

That's what special needs shelters specialize in.

And then many in our population do not would not thrive in general population shelters.

So this will be built just for this population.

A huge gap in filling that need in our community is something we are super proud of.

So the challenge is with all of that is these budgets were put together for this project back in 2023.

And so a lot has changed.

So there are some funding needs to help finish this project.

We're in the design phase now.

And so bring all this to life and bring it to our community to continue to expand and serve well.

Once you get it done, I'm thinking positively, we'll have you back and we'll learn.

Oh, absolutely.

Yes.

Angela Katz is executive director of LARC or Lee Association for Remarkable Citizens.

Thank you so much for coming in to talk with me, Angela.

Thank you.

If you missed any of the show, you can hear all of our episodes on our website wgcu.org/gcl and find the post for today's show.

We'll link to LARC.

In the previous conversation I had with Kevin Lewis.

Our show today was produced by yours truly, with audio production by Matt Krause and video production by David Oquendo.

For now, thanks for listening Im Mike Kiniry.

This is WGCU-FM Fort Myers, 90.1 WMKO, Marco Island 91.7 FM.

We are NPR for Southwest Florida.