The SAGE-Blake Found-ation has been changing the public's perception of people with developmental disabilities since 1994.

Sheri Herbert, job developer with the organization, said the Blake Foundation philosophy makes all the difference.

"No matter who you are, whether you're handicapped or whatever, everyone has value," she said. "Our role in life is to help these people and the community see that these people we're helping can have valued lives." Citizens in Tucson developed the Cerebral Palsy Foundation of Southern Arizona in 1950. The foundation started contracting with the State of Arizona in 1978 and expanded its services throughout the 1980s when job-training programs were created. The job-training programs were eventually called Southern Arizona Group Enterprises (SAGE).

The name of the organization was changed in 1993 to honor a former board member, Danny Blake.

The SAGE-Blake Founda-tion's board of directors decided to expand services into Cochise, Graham and Greenlee counties in 1994.

The foundation is funded through state and federal agencies, as well as local grants and donations.

Cheryl Wilson, program coordinator for the adult services day program, said one grant from the Graham County Community Founda-tion for $1,500 has helped a great deal. She said all money from the county is earmarked for Graham County services, and this grant allowed the foundation to hire staff members to support its clients who do volunteer work in the community.

The foundation's goal is not to babysit its clients to teach them valuable life skills and get them actively involved in the community, Wilson said.

"We integrate people into the community by taking them out frequently -- doing things that you and I take for granted -- and going out to lunch, going shopping," she said.

Some foundation clients volunteer at places like the Chamber of Commerce, the Safford Public Library and the We Care Crisis Pregnancy Center, while others have regular jobs.

Wilson recalled the story of one young woman who wanted to work in a beauty shop. The woman was not trained to cut hair, and Wilson said most other agencies providing similar services would not have been able to help her.

Fortunately, a program the foundation started in 1992, called Personal Futures Planning, allowed staff members to help this woman find a job she wanted.

"Through the process of Futures Planning, they developed a job for her at a beauty shop sweeping, cleaning and helping customers with drinks," Wilson said. "It wasn't that she wanted to do hair as much as she wanted the atmosphere. That never would have happened in the old agency."

Another thing the foundation has to help employ its clients is a collaborative effort with Phelps Dodge wherein clients strip copper wire and sell it back to the company.

"What they're doing is enabling us to give jobs to people who normally wouldn't have jobs, and it's recycling the copper wire so it's helping everyone," Wilson said.

All the foundation's clients are paid minimum wage, which is something in which Wilson said they all take pride.

"It's the right thing to do," Wilson said. "They deserve to be paid a decent wage. Just because they're developmentally disabled doesn't mean they should be paid less."

Paying its clients at least minimum wage -- there are some who make more -- is part of another goal for the foundation: treating people with respect.

"One thing we have seen is that when you treat people normally, they act normally," Wilson said. "When they're expected to act like adults, they do. If you treat them like children, that's how they act."

The foundation's clients from Graham and Greenlee counties who participate in the adult services program are treated with respect and as adults, Wilson said. She said clients are not allowed to color with crayons or do other activities people might consider childish.

Clients still do art and craft projects; they just use age-appropriate materials.

"Allowing them to color with markers or pencils is different than crayons, and if they color a house scene versus Goofy or Donald Duck, that's the difference," she said. "People associate crayons with children, but artists use markers and pencils.

"We don't want them to be looked at as little children because they're not. We want them to be treated with respect -- as adults."

Wilson said she has noticed a change in the way people in the community respond to the foundation's clients. She said people used to joke about people with developmental disabilities, but that doesn't happen anymore.

"Because of our program, because of the way we do things, I think it gives people in Graham County the opportunity to look at people who have a disability in a different way," Wilson said. "By volunteering and working, we're giving back to the community and it's giving people the opportunity to see that they are capable of doing things."

To contact Greg Jones call 428-2560 (ext. 234) or e-mail him at gjones@eacourier.com.