Mother Lode Rehabilitation Enterprises Inc. started serving intellectually and developmentally disabled adults in a fruit shed on Mosquito Road in a time when this population was generally “excluded from the rest of the community,” according to 40-year employee and current Executive Director Susie Davies. Before that time institutions were built to confine, punish and devalue this community, she explained.
MORE opened its doors to eight clients served by three staff members in 1973. They all shared a vision to change the prevailing negative attitude. Over the next 15 years, they moved through several unexpected locations, eventually landing in an old bowling alley.
In 1988 the organization found its home at 399 Placerville Drive where the dedicated team continues to serve the vision of "full inclusion" to this day.
Expanded services, staff and facilities followed accreditation. Much of which was supported by the community through monetary and in-kind donations.
Today MORE serves more than 70 clients with 30-plus people on staff in a newly reimagined building. Services include life skills training, one-on-one counseling, creative arts courses, gardening and agriculture in a new garden and greenhouse facility, a brand new media arts lab with a sound booth and audio/visual capabilities, a theater arts program, culinary arts and independent living support among other things. Community partnerships and community integration are important parts of the overall vision and mission of MORE.
Davies, deflecting credit from herself, said the secret to MORE’s success lies with the many people who have come before her and all those who have made the organization what it is today.
“In fact, I can attest that everyone connected with MORE believes in the vision of ‘Full Inclusion for All People,’” she said, explaining that this unified vision should receive at least partial credit for the many successes of the nonprofit organization.
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