MVLE was founded in 1971 by concerned parents of four adult individuals with disabilities; these parents were seeking to create opportunities for their children beyond the special education they had completed in their high schools. Incorporated in 1972, MVLE established itself at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Our goal at this time was to provide much needed vocational and day support services to individuals with mental retardation.
Thirty-five years later, MVLE's purpose to create opportunities for people with disabilities to successfully participate in community life has not changed. However, change has occurred because of the growth and improvement of our methods and environments through which we have created such opportunities.
Since those early days of working out of a church basement, MVLE has grown to an organization serving nearly 420 individuals, with a staff of 145. Furthermore, instead of operating from one building, we now serve individuals in 25 community and business locations. In addition to our two Springfield centers, we established a third facility in Chantilly. As a result, we are able to offer services both in the centers and in the nearby communities for more individuals with disabilities who live in the Western part of Fairfax County and surrounding areas. Our growth over the past few years has also moved many individuals from center-based services into community businesses, where training and support take place on the job, in the context of small, supported employment groups.
In recent years, we have created employment opportunities through the acquisition of reserved federal contracts via the Javits-Wagner O'Day (JWOD) program. Currently, MVLE offers custodial services through the General Services Administration in Old Town Alexandria, the Defense Acquisitions University in Fort Belvoir and Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC. We also received new contracts with the Government Printing Office that will provide additional work opportunities for our center-based individuals.
While MVLE maintains a major committment to facilitating and supporting the employment of our individuals in community-based work sites, we are also committed to creating choices in center-based programs for those individuals whose needs require more intense levels of support, such as nursing and personal assistance. Such choices include a variety of paid mailroom tasks in our bulk mail and packaging center.
While the organization has grown over the years, MVLE is still led by a volunteer Board of Directors that is responsible for the overall direction of the organization, creation of appropriate policies, and oversight of its programs, operations and fiscal management. The Board is assisted in these efforts by a full-time president who is responsible for the operational and programmatic leadership of the organization.