By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

    Peter Brown recalled a conversation with the parent of one of STRIVE’s members.

    “Before STRIVE, their son would go down the class
list and call just about everybody in his class to get together to do
something on the weekend and everybody would say no,” Brown said. “Now
after going to STRIVE, he’s got hundreds of friends to see and get
together with and isn’t shy about doing that and has Friday nights.
That’s his thing. It’s his social connection.”

    Since 1999, STRIVE has helped teenagers and young
adults with developmental disabilities find peer support as they
participate in a variety of social and educational experiences. STRIVE
offers several programs including a summer camp, a Wednesday night
educational series and opportunities for post secondary education, but
Friday night tends to be the most popular among members.

    Brown, STRIVE’S program manager, said the chance to
socialize while playing pool or watching the Red Sox game typically
draws a crowd of more than 100 people, between the ages of 15 and
24,  to the STRIVE Center in South Portland each Friday night. One
parent drives down from Augusta each week so her daughter can
participate. Other parents have said their sons and daughters will miss
family birthdays and weddings so they can go to STRIVE.

    At the completion of tomorrow’s TD Banknorth Beach
to Beacon 10K Road Race, STRIVE will receive a cash donation of $30,000
from the TD Banknorth Charitable Foundation. The race committee chose
STRIVE to be this year’s race beneficiary and Brown said the donation
will be used for  maintenance and renovations to the STRIVE Center
to ensure the Friday night fun continues.     

    Brown said STRIVE has submitted several applications
to the race committee. With their latest application touting the
organization’s presence in the community and its willingness to work
hard, Brown said the grant adds some legitimacy to the organization.
 

    “Being a fairly new program [and] a fairly small
program, it really validates both the need for programs like these and
also the abilities of the young people that we work with,” he said.
            

    STRIVE is part of PSL Services, an agency that has
been serving adults with developmental disabilities since the 1980s.
Brown said his original plan was to teach junior high level English,
but after working for the former credit card company MBNA after
graduating from the University of Southern Maine, his search for more
rewarding work led him to PSL and then to STRIVE.  

    “I was really looking for something that was going
to be a little bit more different everyday and this really gives me a
chance–I mean it can’t be anymore different everyday,” he said. “It
gives me a chance to work with people, still do some teaching, but also
to have hands in the business end of things and event planning and a
lot of different things depending on the day.”

    The majority of individuals who participate in PSL’s
programs do so via MaineCare or Medicare, Brown said. STRIVE, however,
relies completely on their public relation efforts and 
fundraising.

    One of STRIVE’s ongoing fundraisers is Bookworks!, a
volunteer run used bookstore. Located near the lobby, Brown said the
store is “probably one of greater Portland’s best kept secrets.”

     “We sell paperbacks for a buck and hard covers for
three and a lot of the books are almost brand new. Our members really
take ownership in the project and [are] able to gain work experience
and get some hands on experience.”

    Perhaps STRIVE’s most well known program is STRIVE
U, a year round post secondary education program. Prospective STRIVE U
students go through a full admissions process and fill out an
application, interview with an admissions board and attend an overnight
visit.

    Students live on the residential campus–three
apartments operated by STRIVE- attend classes at the University of
Southern Maine and  take jobs in the community. After students
graduate from the two year program, STRIVE helps with the transition to
the next step by helping them find jobs and a place to live.

    “That program has really gotten a lot of media
attention in the last year or so,” Brown said. “Last summer at about
this time actually, we were in People magazine and then also National
Public Radio so a lot of people–they know more about STRIVE U than they
do about Strive.”

    While Brown appreciates the attention STRIVE U has
received, he pointed out that it is only one of the programs STRIVE
offers. The numbers say it all: STRIVE U has 12 students and 12 alumni,
but the STRIVE organization serves more than 450 individuals.

    The national interest STRIVE U has generated
suggests the STRIVE organization is meeting a critical need, which is
accomplished by listening to what the members and their families want
and need, Brown said.   

    For example, the after school program for high
school students, STRIVE’s newest program, is the direct result of
working with a group of parents and administration at Portland’s
Deering High School.

    “Deering has early release days every Wednesday for
the whole school year,” he said. “For a lot of high school kids that
would be fine–to be able to be home alone and be on their own for a few
hours before their parents come home from work, but for many STRIVE
members and their families that might not be okay.”

    Brown said as a result STRIVE created the Wednesday
afternoon recreation program for students that are enrolled in Life
Skills classes.         

    STRIVE also operates on the advice of a nine member
advisory board, which Brown said operates similarly to a student
council. The board votes on themes for social events and picks outing
destinations. The summer camp program also has theme weeks and 
members might go on the Narrow Gauge Railroad or take a tour of the
airport for a planes, trains and automobiles week.

    As STRIVE members embark on new experiences, Brown
said he doesn’t want STRIVE to be an individual’s whole life, but
rather he hopes it is a meaningful addition to someone’s life. While he
said there is no way to gather any quantitative data around the impact
of STRIVE, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence. One of his favorite
stories involving STRIVE members and high school aged volunteers
demonstrates the impact of the organization’s focus on peer support.

    Early on in the program, Brown said a group of
freshman and sophomore girls who volunteered at STRIVE, wanted to have
lunch with some of the members that attended their school. The girls
searched the cafeteria for their new friends, but couldn’t find them.
As this was a large high school with more than one lunch period, the
girls went to all of the lunches that day. The girls finally found
their friends having lunch in the Special Ed classroom in the basement
of the school. For about a week after that, the volunteers brought
their lunch down to the Special Ed room. The following week, the girls
went down to the classroom first and brought their friends to the
cafeteria. Fed up with going through a process each time they wanted to
eat together, the girls took action.

    “They went and knocked on the principal’s office
door and told the principal, ‘Why do these guys have to have lunch down
there in their class and nobody else does and why shouldn’t they be
able to eat in the cafeteria with everybody else?’” Brown said. “The
principal didn’t really have an answer for them and changed the way
that that worked.”

    Brown added, “I like that example because not only
does it show what we’ve done in the lives of people with disabilities,
but it also shows how we’ve educated some young people without
disabilities as well.”  

    For more information about STRIVE or to learn how to volunteer or make a donation visit www.pslstrive.org.