Letter: Opportunity Village needs help to keep up with growth

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 10:33 a.m.

We are building a new Opportunity Village campus in Henderson to help meet this demand. But even with the generous support of local corporations and the community, we will be hard pressed to finish this project without assistance from local government.

We have applied to Clark County for a Community Development Block Grant to complete construction of this facility and have been rejected by the Citizens Advisory Committee.

It is hard for us to understand why such a well-informed committee would reject funding of a program that can save taxpayers a huge amount of money. Part of our mission in providing vocational training to people with disabilities is to help them earn a living wage and to get their names off the welfare rolls.

Opportunity Village is 80 percent self-funded, and this is only the second time in 44 years we have approached the local government for assistance. We are asking our county commissioners for their help as a last resort, not as a matter of course.

Linda Smith, Resource development director, Opportunity Village