Sunshine School hosts hair-raising fund raiser

"We're so excited about it -- it's one of the newer and more different things in this area," says Chelle Phillips, events and communications coordinator of the Sunshine School and Development Center in Bentonville, of the organization's event Saturday.

She's not exaggerating: Sunshine School's "NWA Over the Edge" event might be equal parts "hair-raiser" and "fundraiser." The peer-to-peer fundraising event allows participants who have raised $500 or more for the Sunshine School to rappel down the side of the six-story 8W Center in Bentonville. Sunshine School officials work with Over the Edge USA, a national organization that provides the technical know-how and equipment for the event.

"We have several VIPs coming to rappel," including Wal-Mart senior vice president Al Dominguez, Wal-Mart vice president Joe Grady, investor Troy Link, Sam's Club senior vice president Ed Romero and, hopefully, Radio Jon/Deek's Jon Williams, Phillips says. She also hints that onlookers might see some interesting characters -- including a hot dog -- rappelling down the building. "It's just going to be a fun day. We're hoping to have a lot of people come out and watch and support those who are going down. It's such a scary thing -- they need to have folks cheering them on!"

Phillips says a "Chicken Coop" area will be available to those who donated at least $100 but are unwilling to take the trip down the side of the building. They'll be treated to raffle prizes and a lunch from Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwiches.

"We also hope to have a live stream from the top of the building, so that we can watch the people step over the edge and see their facial expressions as they come down," Phillips adds. She also mentions that all of the proceeds from the event will benefit the Sunshine School.

"Everything is coming right back here. We need equipment -- we need a lot of equipment for children with disabilities. Even your simple playground equipment -- you have to have different stuff, so it costs more. We would love to have sound panels in our great room -- that's something on our wish lists -- and we need to do some general updates to other things. We need things to keep this place functioning and to make it safe for everybody."

Sunshine School and Development Center was created in 1958 to fill a void left by the public school system, which, at that time, did not enroll children with disabilities. When the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act required public schools to provide special education programs, the center refocused its efforts to offer a variety of programs -- including a therapeutic preschool program, an Arkansas Better Chance preschool program and Parent-as-Teacher program, community support services, case management and weekend retreat respite program.

"Most people know us for our preschool program," which includes children with disabilities, typically developing children and at-risk children, Phillips says. "An at-risk factor may include English as a second language, a teenage parent or some other risk factor that may hold them back in elementary school.

"For those kids who might have some kind of developmental disability, we have therapists on staff that are here all the time. Kids can get their preschool education while also having their therapies all at one place, so mom and dad won't have to go back and forth and make those plans after school."

Phillips says most of the preschool students graduate and go on to public schools, but they can return to the center for additional therapies as needed.

For adults, the center offers a wide variety of services, ranging from teaching basic living skills, to helping administer medicine on a daily basis, to giving rides to and from work or school.

"Our biggest focus is to try and integrate our clients into the community as much as possible," Phillips says. "Each person is an individual, and our services carefully cater to their needs."

One of the center's adult clients is Ryan Love, a young man who rides his bike back and forth to his job at Buffalo Wild Wings. Love will be rappelling at Saturday's event in his Spider-Man costume. Joining him will be fellow SSDC client Jaqueline Bettis, who is wheelchair-bound. But she says in her fundraising statement on the SSDC website, that if she meets her fundraising goal, she will "receive the thrill of a lifetime ... [and will] also be supporting Sunshine School and Development Center of Northwest Arkansas to help enrich the lives of individuals with disabilities like myself."

"The Over the Edge organization tries to make a lot of accommodations to make anything work -- that's one of the things that drew us to them," Phillips says. "That's important to us. That's our mission. And if anyone wanted to be able to participate, we wanted to say 'Yes.'

"We know rappelling isn't for everybody," Phillips says with a laugh. "We recognize that. But if you don't want to rappel, find someone to sponsor. You can go to our website, go to the 'Find a Rappeller' section, and all of our Sunshine family are marked with an asterisk -- our clients would love the support!"

NAN Profiles on 03/05/2017