 This is a story about people, people who happen to live in a town called Santa Rosa, California, which is about 60 miles north of San Francisco. It's the story about a home for six young men who happen to be persons who had the condition of autism, their parents, a service club, a political party, a church that all came together to bring to pass a very significant community project. It was a project that involved a spiritual and emotional and physical experience for each of us that were involved. In one day, a house was repainted inside and out. Numerous additions were made to the interior to make life easier. A new lawn and a brick walkway were put in and in a 12-hour period from 7 in the morning until 7 at night, a sense of community really took place. It's a project that can be repeated any place in the state of California. For me, it was a formative experience. It has instilled in me a deep and abiding concern for people with disabilities. It's made my involvement with people with disabilities, my involvement being a sincere desire to help those with disabilities, a lifelong commitment. It showed to me that public-private partnership projects could be done successfully, that it really, all it takes is identifying a legitimate need or concern at the local level and then marshaling the resources to address that need. And I look for opportunities constantly where the government and the private sector and the charitable sector can come together to produce some sort of community benefit and address local needs. I think all too often we have a tendency to look to Big Brother to resolve our needs at either the state or the federal government level when in reality the ability to address so many of our needs lies within us, within our hearts, if only we're willing to open up our hearts and to give generously. I think people would be rather amazed as we were in doing the Benton House Project at the response of the community. There are many, many people out there who are very well-meaning and well-intentioned, who want to get involved, who want to help, who want to make a difference, who are only waiting to be asked. And I know it sounds like I'm saying, proceed on faith and faith alone, but faith is a big factor in doing a project like Benton House. Well in the beginning I think we thought that government should be the answer and the only answer. And we realized very quickly that there really was more that we needed to give and more that we needed to do within the community. By only using government as the answer we found that we were very isolated and that isolation really was causing a lot of problems. It was causing burnout, staff turnover, low staff morale, burnout with the board and with the parents because we really didn't have the community support. And it was actually these problems and limited resources that caused us to take another step and to try something that was very risky for us, which was to go outside of ourselves and to do something that we hadn't done before, which was to ask for help. They wanted to help the business community, the service clubs, the churches, other providers. They really wanted to help. They just needed to be asked. And the thing that I learned in this kind of outreach is that really it's a partnership. And what we asked for was not a handout but a helping hand. And people are willing to give you a helping hand. And it was the way that finally we became fully integrated into the community. Before that time we were in our own isolation, we were coping the best we could together. But until we reached out and we admitted that we needed help and these wonderful people in our community came forward to help, we really weren't part of the fabric of the community. And what I loved about it so much was the interaction between the clients, the staff and the community members because it really was the best education we could have ever possibly done. They learned, we all learned so much. Working with the leaders of the community, we saw real need. We saw a whole area of our community that really weren't being taken care of as a community. It had been the time that the state had been taking care of these people and had basically let them go out in the community. We saw an easy way, an easy approach to get them in a facility with people of their own and a mutual kind of thing between the community and the politicals. And I think it worked out, we saw it come together and I can't be any happier and I'm sure you can't either of what really has happened. But through Rotary and through some of my other connections we found it very easy. When we told them what it was about, we came with some slide programs to our Rotary and kind of went through an education process for ourselves as well as our members and it's kind of told the story and it was very, very easy. It all started with a budget and what they really needed and we had some key people go into this particular house on Benton Street here in Santa Rosa see what the real needs were, for instance a washing machine dryer, what was a real need, the linoleum floor was a need, some kitchen facilities they needed, we saw they needed some heat so we had a heat stove there, a ventilating system we saw a need for some fans, some air in the place and then of course the painting and the work that went on outside, making it a nice presentable unit that somebody felt when they come there it was a house that cared. I remember it took a lot of coordination, a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, it did actually start, it happened on one Saturday but it actually started prior to that we had to get a hold of electricians and floor people and ordering fireplace inserts and fans it was a lot of activity, a lot of like I said phone calls and making contacts prior to the event and the day itself it was quite busy, there were so many people here you couldn't keep track of them there was painting all over the offices, the house, people laying floors inside the house putting the ceiling fans up and delivering bricks outside and doing landscaping it was quite an event, it was really something to have everybody there at the end of the day we actually had a ribbon cutting ceremony and we had an assemblyman, supervisor, mayor and some of the parents and board members of our agency and it was something so I'm sure everyone who came out felt really good about painting the house alongside of an autistic person who was maybe they helped them a little bit or just getting to know an agency such as ours and the clients that we serve, we are part of the community and most people I don't think own that they don't own the fact that a residential home in their community is part of their community we're not these strange people that moved into their neighborhood and we don't belong there we do belong there, our clients are the children of other people who live in the community it's just a different lifestyle, it's a different group of people living next door it's interesting because the more you get to know about autism and are around autistic people the more you realize I think that there's a little bit of autism in everybody many times people are not aware of the needs of people such as myself and our guys recently a wonderful organization that I had spoken at I was talking about our need for our guys to get vocational training in the community well one of the gentlemen called me two days later offering jobs for some of our guys to work there so I think that there are a variety of ways that organizations and people can help in the community and I would like to see more projects put together it was a good example of what community involvement can do to help organizations like ours to accomplish some of the things that we can't do ourselves because basically of lack of manpower and our devotion to the problems of taking care of the young men here that's the main focus of California programs for the autistic so anyone who can or any organization that can come along like the Rotary Club in this case and help to do what they did we were and still are very grateful for that sort of help and we would always welcome any groups or individuals who would be interested to do this sort of thing for us it was a wonderful experience typical example of maybe it's a I don't want to use the word corny but of community involvement in a local project like this it made us feel good that they would take the trouble to do something like that and we wish that it would happen oftener because our needs continue in so many ways but for that particular occasion it was very satisfying to be involved in that and then I think almost by accident the people in Benton House said to me if this house could be repeated we could double what we're doing well that was a challenge to me and I think it can be said that I accepted that challenge and said we will go ahead and we will get a house so that Benton House could be repeated Benton House is a very nice place and it's in a good neighborhood but I thought we could make a better step by going into a very, very much higher rent district if you want to put it and put them there and I must say in all candor we never had a single complaint that I know of in doing it that way but again I think it underlines Tom what I'm trying to say namely that we want people treated with dignity we see them as made to the image and likeness of God and if they are then we don't say they deserve the best in the sense of live like millionaires but they deserve a very decent environment if we can afford it and frankly we could and did one of the things we've discovered is if we show the people needs of others they're very responsive and if they know that their donations are going almost directly to the people or part of the program they feel much better about that's just one of those psychological things and this again is one of the advantages of a cooperative venture with the state and really when you come right down to it it's politically smart it's economically smart because it brings together two sets of resources and every politician has an opportunity to say we've done great things and they have so once the track record was established we became one agency that was able to open up a number of things almost all of them on cooperative ventures and I think the realization that in our country where we have lots of people with a lot of money they will give it if they see that it's a valid cause and they will give it for those things that they like and one of the things we always have to do I think is challenge them to give and that's been one of the characteristics of our country when Benton House came and made their application the committee was excited because here was a new opportunity for us so I made a field trip out to the house I was not totally unfamiliar with the program and we decided okay we'll give them 9500 plus in grant monies solely for the bathroom renovation and for the carpet even if we can't fund them through the block grant process the housing authority gets the major funding and we refer groups to other agencies if we can't help them we'll refer them on to another agency that can help them so whether or not the funding is there at least they get doors open and they get referrals and recommendations which will open more doors later on a lot of planning was involved a lot of time spent figuring out exactly what was needed and how we were going to be able to accomplish it the fun part was the day that we were there because while it was a full day of work of physical work it was also a day where you could see from start to finish what your hard work accomplished and we saw the finished product we saw the house painted we saw the new flooring sub flooring and the new linoleum put down in the dining room which was one of my jobs to do as the first time I've ever done sub flooring I'll tell you it was like an old barn raiser I guess where we came together and we ate lunch and when we finished one project that we were assigned to we went along and helped with something else and everyone participated everyone had a good time and a sense of accomplishment was really rewarding I was happy to be a part of the Benton House project it was a fun memory in my mind and it really does prove the point that people helping people is what makes this world go around it was good for us it was good for the clients that lived there it was good for the neighbors that saw the improvement it was good for parents to know that we care about their kids and they're not forgotten by a community it was good all the way around and it was fun to sit back stand in the street and look at what we had done through that day and be very very proud of it the Benton House project brought together people with developmental disabilities their parents the staff and political business and church leaders from the community of Santa Rosa California in a common purpose it's the type of project that can be replicated any place in the state of California and I strongly urge you to look for your community leaders who do care it does work