NILP 10th Annual Golf Tournament for Independence

Your generous tax-deductible donation enables us to strengthen our direct services, advocacy and community outreach.

This year’s annual meeting was held on October 24th. Consumers, Staff, and our partners in the community all attended for an open house, with the annual meeting with the Board of Directors taking place imediately after. Attendees got to tour the programs and departments of NILP to learn about areas of the agency that they might have known about through previous contact. Consumers had a chance to chat with staff on a more social level and catch up with old friends.

While visiting a consumer at the Colonial Heights Care and Rehabilitation Center in Lawrence, staff was introduced to a 51 year old homeless, disabled consumer. The consumer has been a resident of Lawrence all his life, but for the past two years he had lived under a bridge in the city off and on. This past winter, this consumer became very ill, he was brought to the Lawrence General Hospital dehydrated and suffering from shortness of breath. The consumer remained at the Colonial Heights Rehabilitation Center for seven months after being discharge from the hospital. The consumer was homeless for a long period of time and only had some personal papers and clothes that the nursing home had provided. With the help of an NILP Options Counselor, we are proud to report that this consumer was discharged from Colonial Heights with a housing voucher from the Lynn Housing Authority and is now living back in the community where he belongs. Along with community transition funds from Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission to purchase needed appliances for his new apartment, he also was helped out by charitable donations from Lazarus House, Bread & Roses, and Lawrence Society of St. Vincent De Paul.