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For Immediate Release: June 7, 2002
Contact: Christine A. Knickerbocker
Coordinator of Public Relations: 845-692-4444, x-2547
Christine_Knickerbocker@crvi.org
Monticello - At an open house today
celebrating the relocation of its Sullivan County administrative offices to
9 Landfield Avenue, Crystal Run Village, Inc. announced the closing and
subsequent sale of its Fallsburg Residential School Campus.
The impending completion of a new residence in the Town of Delaware for the
final four people remaining on its Route 42 campus, will fulfill the
agency’s nine year initiative to dissolve the congregate care system of
providing services to people with intellectual disabilities. At the time of
peak occupancy the residential school was home to 184 people.
According to Jim Lawler, executive director for the human services agency,
the Crystal Run Village success story is one in which social justice has
prevailed for those who have over the centuries suffered due to neglect and
degradation because of their differences. “The closing of our campuses is
particular to what is right for humanity,” Lawler said. “It considers
individual liberties, individual dignity and individual respect for all
people.”
The agency’s mission to close its three residential schools is the result of
a new philosophy focusing on the needs of people with disabilities as
individuals and the fulfillment of their right to live in a home, in a
caring community. Since 1993, 327 residents of the Crystal Run Village, Inc.
campuses have relocated to 44 group homes in communities throughout
Sullivan, Orange and Rockland Counties. The reconfiguration of the Sullivan
County Campus results in 132 people with intellectual disabilities receiving
residential services in 16 group homes and several supported apartments.
Crystal Run Village, Inc. seems to have a knack for adding new life to real
estate having significant history in Sullivan County. Its newly renovated
offices are at the site of the former Kelly Candy Company. The residential
school in Fallsburg was the site of the Flagler Hotel, the premiere resort
of the Catskills during the 1920s.
According to Jeanne Savona, associate executive director of the agency’s
Sullivan County Operations, 22 employees will work in the offices on
Landfield Avenue. “We are delighted with our new administrative space and
the conveniences offered by being in
downtown Monticello,” Savona said. “We were based in Fallsburg since 1971;
leaving the campus is bitter sweet considering all the memories,” she said.
“Our residents are now receiving services in their own homes by more than
200 employees devoted to direct care. Being “in-the-community” is the
essential ingredient for allowing staff to move beyond the role of
“caretaker” that was the model for their work in the segregated campus
setting,” Savona explained. “Staff efforts can now focus on dignifying the
lives of the people served by responding to them as individuals.”
Crystal Run Village, Inc. is a non-profit, independent provider of services
to more than 700 people with developmental, psychological and physical
disabilities living in Sullivan, Orange and Rockland Counties. It has a
reputation for skilled management, vigorous program development, astute
provision of care and financial stability. The human services agency employs
approximately 760 people and has an operating budget of over $26-million.
Its main offices have been located in Middletown since 1959.
For more information contact:
Christine A. Knickerbocker, Public Relations (845) 695-2547;
christine_knickerbocker@crvi.org
www.crvi.org
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