Jenifer with her daughter
Dreams With Wings, Inc. was founded in June of 2000 by Jenifer Frommeyer, who is the current Executive Director, along with two current board members, Mary Scheen and Jane Naiser. Jenifer Frommeyer has a background in providing services to individuals with mental retardation and developmental disabilities and is the mother of a son with Down Syndrome. Jane Naiser has a daughter with mental retardation and Mary Scheen has a sister with mental retardation. They realized the great need for quality services for this population and had personal experience with the long waiting lists for individuals as they became older and ineligible for services they had received as children. They were dedicated to creating a program that focused on allowing the individuals served to grow and flourish. Their biggest concern was creating a quality program that helped each individual to meet their full potential.
With a start-up grant of $25,000 from Seven Counties, they started providing housing for adults with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. In 2000, they served four people. In 2008, Dreams With Wings has grown to provide not only housing, but also community habilitation (day programming), supported employment, recreation, therapies, supported apartments, and general life skills. Dreams With Wings now serves over 100 individuals with a budget of $2 million dollars. Dreams With Wings has a long waiting list for each of its programs and has the difficult task of turning clients away.
Dreams With Wings differentiates its services from other providers by the level of care the staff provide to their clients as well as the philosophy of each client’s full inclusion into society. All of the staffed residences are scattered into well established neighborhoods and are not in secluded or separated from the community in which they live.
