Program provides employment to special adults

The City of Calabasas has awarded Villa Esperanza Services Vocational Program with a $4,000 grant to benefit adults with developmental disabilities who are seeking employment.

Villa Esperanza Services West Region Vocational program provides a landscape maintenance training program for developmentally disabled, yet physically capable, adults 18 and older. The program provides full-time employment in basic ground maintenance and ongoing vocational education related to the field.

Through a vocational training partnership with the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, Villa has one crew of four developmentally disabled adults full-time, on-site providing landscape services to the agency's facilities, which include the water district headquarters, Rancho composting plant, Tapia water treatment facility and Westlake reservoir.

"Our experience with Villa has been very positive," said John Mundy, water district general manager. "The crew members are courteous, conscientious and well supervised.

With the donation, Villa will be able to purchase new landscape equipment used in the work program, said Robert Efford, Villa's vocational program director.

"The landscape maintenance program is a growing enterprise and in order to remain competitive with other landscaping businesses, we need to have appropriate and efficient equipment for our landscape crews," Efford said.

"By providing quality services we will be able to obtain more contracts and will be able to expand the program to provide more job placements for adults with developmental disabilities in Calabasas."

The grant also provides funding for marketing and outreach to residents in Calabasas who have a developmental disability and are seeking vocational training and job placement.

The program gives adults an opportunity to learn new skills, responsibility, and earn a paycheck.

Villa Esperanza Services is in its 45th year of serving people

with developmental disabilities. Villa was founded in 1961 by a group of mothers who believed their developmentally disabled children deserved quality care and education.

Today, Villa provides a range of programs that serve a diverse disabled population of more than 1,050 individuals in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, including children, and adults with special needs associated with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities.

For more information on the partnership with the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District or on Villa Esperanza Services, call (626) 449-2919, ext. 62, or visit the website at www.villaesperanzaservices.org.