Every year during the second weekend of April, Baldwin County Strawberry Festival attendees enjoy the festival's famous strawberry shortcake, live entertainment, arts and crafts booths and the huge amount of strawberries available for purchase. But they may not think much about the impact the festival has on the people it benefits the other 363 days of the year.

The strawberry festival, which will be held April 13 and 14 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Loxley Municipal Park, raises about $40,000 every year, and proceeds are split between ARC-Baldwin County and Loxley Elementary School.

Loxley Elementary uses the $20,000 it receives to counteract the budget cuts Alabama schools have experienced in areas like teacher instructional supplies, updating technology in classrooms and professional development for teachers, said Dr. De Ann M. Ramey, the school's principal.

As important as the money is to the school, Ramey said people should be equally excited about the impact the festival has on ARC-Baldwin County, Ramey said.

ARC-Baldwin County

ARC-BC provides full-time residential care to 95 people with mental or physical disabilities, including both children and adults. Before ARC-BC and other residential programs existed in the area, the people the organization serves would have had to live at home with their families, who are not always equipped to provide the care they need, or would have had to live in an institutional facility far from their hometowns.

“We make sure they get to live in their community, and that they are provided assistance and support at all times,” said ARC-BC director Kathy Fleet. “There is no one in our residential communities who has the ability to live without this kind of support.”

Every day, residents like Allen Hall, 33, and Mike Cline, 38, wake up and get to participate in activities like sailing, powerlifting, working out, going to the grocery store, learning to manage money and even working in return for compensation — activities they would probably not have the opportunity to experience without ARC-BC, Fleet said.

“During the day, if an individual is over 21, they come to day services, and we provide training in vocational training, social skills and independent living skills,” Fleet said. “It enables them to get out of their homes as well as meet other individuals from the community.”

ARC-BC also makes sure their clients have proper medical and dental care.

“The staff are the nicest to us, and they help us out,” Hall said. “When we need something, we can go to the store and get it and bring it back.”

Scott Skipper, personnel training coordinator, said the staff and the residents become like family to each other.

“We love working with these guys,” Skipper said. “Each of us has a different part to ensure they have a wholesome, healthy life and that they are safe and secure.”

Funding

Seventy-five percent of ARC-BC's funding comes from the MR/DD Waiver Program, a federal and state funded program that provides money to community-based residential programs to assist, support and train those with mental disabilities.

This money pays the staff and provides them with resources they need to better serve their clients.

Each client's disability check pays for their housing, food and other basic needs, but without donations and the money from the Strawberry Festival, there are no extra dollars to spend on anything else.

“We use the money to make their quality of life better,” Fleet said. “Medicaid doesn't cover furnishing the homes or buying computers and other supplies they enjoy.”

So each year, ARC-BC takes money raised from the festival and uses it to build and repair clients' homes, buy vehicles to transport clients to activities and purchase other supplies residents enjoy.

Seeing the community come out and spend their money at the festival, knowing it benefits ARC-BC, is indescribable, Fleet said.

“If it were not for our support we receive from our community, politicians and churches, we would not be able to provide the quality of life we provide for these individuals,” she said.

Fleet, who has worked with ARC-BC since 1985, said she is constantly inspired by her staff and clients, and she hopes Baldwin County residents who interact with the organization through the Strawberry Festival or volunteering are inspired, too.

“The individuals I work with motivate me,” she said. “The one thing that impresses me the most is they don't have pity parties. They try very hard at whatever they have the opportunity to do. They have such a positive attitude. They are very considerate with others, it doesn't take a lot to please them.”

Want strawberries?

You can purchase flats and half-flats of juicy, sweet strawberries at the festival. The cost is $20 per flat and $15 per half-flat. A flat includes 12 pints of strawberries. ATMs will be available.  

• WHO: ARC-Baldwin County, Loxley Elementary School
• WHAT: Baldwin County Strawberry Festival
• WHEN: April 13 and 14, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• WHERE: Loxley Municipal Park