Our Mission

Where we’ve been and where we’re going..........

We are the parents of a 37 year old son who is developmentally handicapped. He started with special education classes 30 years ago in our home state of Georgia and has never “fit the mold”. We have tried to provide a fulfilling lifestyle and have enrolled him in every possible program but none has proved to be satisfying. We are painfully aware that there is no cooker cutter answer to the question of raising a mentally handicapped child.

Job training and placement was never successful because there simply aren’t enough affordable centers and acceptable employment positions available. We have watched, more times than any of us care to remember, as he would excitedly attend one center after another offering “training for creative, fulfilling work” only to be placed with an employer to bag groceries for disgruntled shoppers or to clean bathrooms, wash dishes or mop floors eight hours a day. Though there is certainly nothing wrong with those types of jobs, they can hardly be called fulfilling, interesting or creative especially when you think in terms of a lifetime vocation. For someone who is mentally handicapped, they can also often become torturous at the hands of coworkers, bosses and patrons.

We have looked at several centers located in the U.S. who seem likely to grasp the problems we all face, but the ones we thought could actually provide the kind of assistance our son (and his peers) need, we simply could not afford.

For those reasons and many more, we started planning The Great Escape. It became apparent that our family is not the only one suffering these problems so we decided to open a center where our son and a few more lucky individuals will receive a lifestyle that will be healthy, secure, relaxed and most of all, HAPPY. One where there is no pressure to fit someone else’s idea of what they should be, but one where they lead interesting lives and are comfortable in their own skins.

We firmly believe that everyone, regardless of their position in life, deserves care, compassion, protection, love and, most of all, respect. Every single person knows something we don’t and all we need to do is listen to learn. Our goals may sound simple to most, but to us, they mean everything.




“THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS A PARENT PROVIDES A CHILD ARE ROOTS AND WINGS”