By: Mark Gillespie and Vi Hutton<\/p>\n
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ELM CITY CENTER WALNUT CAMPUS 2018<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n Elm City Center began in 1959 when Robert Manlove, a counselor with the Illinois Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, met with Jacksonville educators Robert Blazier and Harry Emerick.\u00a0 They began to plan to rehabilitate people toward community living.\u00a0 Soon Jackie Hanback joined in working with them.\u00a0 From their discussions came the concept of the Elm City Center we know today.\u00a0 Using volunteers and school classrooms during the summer, they began teaching vocational and daily living skills to 8 individuals.\u00a0 Elm City Center became a 501(c)3 organization on May 27, 1971.<\/p>\n In 1959 the first space was rented above the Times Theater.\u00a0 There were many moves until in 1974, the City Council voted $40,000 in revenue sharing funds for Elm City to buy the WJJY TV building on West Walnut.\u00a0 Our campus has grown over the years, with an addition to the north of the old TV studios where we used to build pallets, and then another as a work space and warehouse for products we packaged for Capitol\/EMI.\u00a0 The GTE telephone building to the west was purchased and became classrooms, with a connecting hallway to the administration building \/ production areas.\u00a0 Then a new building was erected on the west part of our campus for additional classroom space, a kitchen and lunch room, and packaging, area.\u00a0 That building was then expanded further to the west as the packaging program continued to grow.\u00a0 The Main campus sits on 14.5 acres with approximately 100,000 square feet under roof, and houses our offices, warehouses, truck docks, vocational training areas and classrooms.<\/p>\n The Social Center was originally on East State Street, but in 1995 the Illinois Power Building was purchased.\u00a0 In 1998, the Social Center was named for Clyde L. York, a long time supporter and member of the Board.\u00a0 The Social Center was open Monday \u2013 Friday in the evenings.\u00a0 Individuals could go to cooking class, play bingo on Wednesday nights, watch TV, play pool, use the computers, exercise, do crafts, play cards or board games.\u00a0 Staff was on duty to serve drinks and free meals were offered several times a month.<\/p>\n Morgan County Housing has 3 brick homes and a 10 unit apartment complex that were especially built for Elm City Center Individuals.\u00a0 We also work with people who have their own apartments throughout Jacksonville.\u00a0 In 2012 we opened our first CILA residential program for people who moved from JDC once it closed.\u00a0 Since then we have opened two more CILAs.\u00a0 We also work with many people living independently in over 20 apartments or their own home throughout the Jacksonville area.\u00a0 We also provide services to Individuals living in Morgan, Sangamon, Pike, Green, Cass, and Scott counties.<\/p>\n In 65 years, the Center has only had 4 Executive Directors:\u00a0 Perry Hensley from 1966 \u2013 1968, Betty Teaford from 1969 \u2013 2001, Tom Frederick from 2001-2019, and our current President and CEO David Pennell from 2019 \u2013 present.\u00a0 Since our beginning, we have grown and prospered as a premiere provider of services to Individuals with developmental or intellectual disabilities or with mental illness.\u00a0 The foresight and dedication of our administration, staff, volunteers, supporters and others, beginning with our founders and including all who have been involved over the years, are what make Elm City Center a truly amazing organization.<\/p>\n On Columbus Day, 2014 we were visited by J. Mitch Hopper, one of the first technicians employed at the television studio that is now our administration building.\u00a0 He has a website of interest that describes the station’s short history: http:\/\/www.brainmist.com\/wjjy_tv\/wjjy_tv.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Elm City Rehabilitation Center, a not-for\u2011profit organization, was founded in August 1959, and has been at its current location on W. Walnut St. since 1974.\u00a0 Vocationally oriented, ECC helps people with disabilities be independent and live in the community. HISTORY OF ELM CITY CENTER By: Mark Gillespie and Vi Hutton Elm City Center began in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4808,"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions\/4808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elmcity.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A note about our building<\/span><\/h3>\n