Lifetime Assistance to renovate three centers with help from Golisano Foundation challenge grant

Lifetime Assistance Inc. has received a $750,000 challenge grant from the Golisano Foundation. The funding will help the nonprofit transform three-day services centers to meet the changing needs of those with developmental disabilities.

The Independence Together campaign, the largest in Lifetime Assistance‘s history, will support essential renovations to its three largest day services centers: the Lowry Center in Clarkson, Paul Road Center in Chili and Weiland Road Center in Greece.

With a goal of $5.1 million, the Golisano Foundation gift will match every dollar up to $750,000 contributed by the community. It is the largest single campaign gift received by Lifetime Assistance to date.

“We are extremely grateful to the Golisano Foundation for this generous challenge grant,” said Lifetime Assistance President and CEO James Branciforte. “It demonstrates the foundation’s trust in our team and our vision for helping the extremely vulnerable population we serve benefit from an environment that meets their personal needs, facilitates learning skills and allows them to reach their potential and highest degree of independence.”

When finished, the three renovated centers will be one-of-a-kind centers with Learning & Works Suites that include culinary, senior, technology, health and wellness, continuing education/vocational, music and arts and enrichment. The centers will be fully accessible, motiving centers to meet the needs of the hundreds of individuals supported there.

“The rapidly changing needs of those we support requires us to change how we deliver services,” Branciforte said. “Those who depend on us for day services are medically frail and have severe physical needs.”

Those individuals are aging and increasingly have Alzheimer’s and other age-related conditions, he said.

“More than half of the people we serve use wheelchairs now and there is a tremendous increase of young people with severe autism,” Branciforte added. “Our quality facilities must always deliver upon Lifetime’s mission of service and reflect the dignity of the people we serve, meet diverse needs and assure community inclusion, independent growth and learning. With the community’s help, we can achieve our goal.”

Construction is scheduled to begin in summer 2020 and will be sequenced over the following two years in order to maintain services at each of the centers. The renovated centers will feature advanced assistive technologies, state-of-the-art technology, more opportunity to volunteer in the community and gain work skills and programs that are more community based, officials said.

“Lifetime’s designs for revisioning day services is an important project that will create more accessible and supportive environments, especially for the growing number of older adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Ann Costello, executive director of the Golisano Foundation. “The renovations, including the Learning and Work Suites in each center, will make Lifetime’s day services inviting and flexible, providing greater opportunity for continuing education, skill development, socialization and community inclusion.”

Other major gifts received to date include those from the August Family Foundation, Barclay Damon LLC, Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation and Davenport Hatch Foundation, among others.

Lifetime Assistance is the largest, most comprehensive agency in the Greater Rochester area serving children and adults with developmental disabilities. The agency serves more than 1,800 people every day at more than 70 sites in the region. Lifetime is one of 300 agencies nationwide to receive accreditation by the Council on Quality and Leadership.

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