Press Releases

ACES Receives $25,000 Quality of Life Grant from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for a New Inclusive Playground at ACES Village School

January 4th, 2022

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(North Haven, CT – January 4, 2022): Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES) was recently awarded a $25,000 Quality of Life grant from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. The awarded funding will support the purchase of inclusive playground equipment for the accessible playground that will be installed at ACES Village School during the summer of 2022.

ACES Village School currently serves 152 students who have a range of cognitive, physical, behavioral, language, and medical challenges. This inclusive playground equipment will teach students how to play with others and help them gain gross motor skill activity through exercise. The playscape will provide a space for occupational therapists and physical therapists to engage students in activities to ensure meaningful progress toward their Individualized Educational Plan (IEP) goals and objectives. Additionally, classroom teachers and speech pathologists will be able to use the inclusive space to address communication and social skills.

“ACES Village School is incredibly thankful for the gracious support from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation,” said Ginny Tagliatela, Principal of ACES Village School. “The Foundation’s contribution directly impacts our diverse student population and will allow students to have a playground where kids can be kids—regardless of their differences.”

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation’s Quality of Life Grants Program impacts and empowers people living with paralysis, their families and caregivers by providing grants to nonprofit organizations whose projects and initiatives foster inclusion, involvement and community engagement, while promoting health and wellness for those affected by paralysis in all 50 states and U.S. territories. The Quality of Life Grants Program has funded 3,410 non-profit programs, awarding over $34 million to organizations nationwide that provide services to foster community engagement, improved access, and independent living.

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About ACES:

Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES) is the regional educational service center for New Haven and parts of Middlesex Counties. Established in 1969, ACES strives each day to fulfill its vision of creating an equitable and socially just world, one life at a time. ACES serves its members districts and others through an ever-growing array of programs, services and schools that meet the needs of a changing educational landscape. As a school district, ACES operates three magnet and eight special education schools. ACES services range from transportation, professional development and school improvement services, technology, translation, international, security, and occupational and physical therapy. ACES operates the Open and Magnet School Parent Choice programs for New Haven County. Its programs include a federally funded Early Head Start Program and ACES ACCESS, a vocational and life skills program for developmentally and physically disabled adults ages 21 and older. For more information, go to www.aces.org.

About the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation:

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation started as a grassroots movement by pioneers who refused to accept the long-standing dogma that a spinal cord, once injured, could never recover or be repaired. In 1982, New Jersey teenager Henry Stifel was involved in a car accident that left him with quadriplegia at the age of 17. Led by Henry's father, the family mobilized friends, neighbors, scientists, bankers, and local political leaders to form a foundation to raise money for spinal cord research. At that point in time, spinal cord research was at its infancy and nicknamed the “graveyard of neurobiology.” But what started as a community response to a crisis quickly grew into a national movement. Just a few years later, in an effort to maximize resources and avoid duplication, the Stifel Paralysis Research Foundation and the American Paralysis Association (APA) joined forces in the mid-1980s under the APA banner. Through its support of cutting-edge basic science, the APA changed the field of paralysis research, transforming it from an obscure specialty practiced by a few scientists in isolated labs, to one of the most exciting and collaborative areas of neuroscience. In 1995, when Christopher Reeve was injured, the APA was one of the first places that he and Dana turned to. By 1999, the APA and Christopher's foundation came together as the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which added Dana's name to its moniker after her untimely death in March 2006. Christopher and Dana were never celebrity figureheads. They were hands-on, activist leaders, who rallied a swelling chorus of voices advocating for people living with paralysis. They recognized that the true heroes in the spinal cord injured community are those living with paralysis and their families. Today, through the Reeve Foundation's persistence and promise, neuroscientists around the world agree that repairing the damaged spinal cord is not a question of if, but a question of when.