It takes a village to give disabled adults an opportunity

David Kihara

Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004 | 1:56 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

December 24 - 26, 2004

Opportunity Village may mean different things to different people -- a training facility for the mentally challenged, a job-placement center for mentally handicapped or an adult day-care center for individuals with severe handicaps.

But for James Ruggles, it is a place where he can work, earn an income and where he is surrounded by friends.

"I like working. I get paid," said the 34-year-old Ruggles, who is mentally handicapped.

He is just one of about 1,500 people with disabilities at Opportunity Village, the nonprofit organization that teaches vocational skills to mentally disabled men and women in the Las Vegas Valley and places them into jobs throughout the community.

In the Opportunity Village training center at 6300 W. Oakey Blvd. more than 150 mentally disabled adults work a variety of jobs, from stuffing envelopes and assembling small cardboard boxes to working a mechanical press.

Opportunity Village pays each trainee a "training wage" depending on their productivity, said Linda Smith, chief development officer. While some of the more severely disabled trainees will receive $20 a week, a worker such as Ruggles can earn between $100 and $200 every two weeks, she said.

But the real benefits come when an adult leaves the training site and is placed in a job in the community.

Currently, Opportunity Village bids on numerous jobs and has placed individuals in a variety of positions, from janitorial work at McCarran International Airport and the Boulder Dam visitor areas to preparing and serving food at Nellis Air Force Base. Once placed, they can often earn up to $10 an hour, Smith said.

Yet there are still adjustment problems for those placed in jobs in the community, Smith said. Sometimes, the individual won't fit in well with co-workers and intentionally performs poorly on the job because they want to return to the Opportunity Village training site where they are accepted and with friends, she said.

"It's a very isolated disability, and it can be very lonely," Smith said. "Most people see the disability first, not the person."

About a fourth of the mentally disabled at Opportunity Village live in group homes, with most others living with their families. A small percentage live at the Desert Regional Center, a state institution, Smith said.

Many in Las Vegas are aware of Opportunity Village through its annual Magical Forest display, which features holiday-themed displays and local celebrities. The proceeds of that annual celebration go toward further vocational training programs and other programs at the center.

One is Project PRIDE with services at the Opportunity Village campus on Oakey as well as a facility in Henderson. The program serves 24 of the most severely disabled individuals, many of whom use wheelchairs. Smith said it is mostly an adult day-care center.

"The people here would have gone to a nursing home and left to die" if Project PRIDE wasn't available, Smith said, referring to the 12 individuals in a brightly colored day room at the Oakey campus.

Many of the individuals in Project PRIDE suffer from severe cases of mental retardation, and in many cases have multiple disabilities, such as retardation, autism and blindness.

Started in 1999, Project PRIDE is one of the newer programs at the 50-year-old Opportunty Village, and it is one of the most labor-intensive. There is one staff member for every two patients in Project PRIDE. There is usually one staff member for every eight trainees at Opportunity Village, which has 200 staff members.

While it sounds depressing to some, Smith said she finds working at Opportunity Village immensely rewarding. Originally a dancer, Smith started volunteering 28 years ago -- the same year her son Chris was born. Chris is mentally retarded and has the mental capacity of a 3-year-old, she said.

"I would rather be around the people here than anywhere else," she said.

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