Around The Block

Business, people rally to help kids with special needs

0 Comments | Maryland Gazette, Jul 28, 2010

Occasionally, amid hypocrisy and tired political arguments, a story reminds you people can actually be generous and empathetic. The outpouring of support for the Cisco Center is such a story.

A couple of months ago, things were looking grim for the Cisco Center, a small independent school that provides services to developmentally disabled children.

A February fire gutted the home in Severna Park that housed the center, which has since been operating in a small office park in Millersville.

The center was nominated for the TV series “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” and staff spent weeks going through filming and preparing materials. But that fell through in May. And in the same month, the center also found out it would get no insurance money.

Now, thanks to the kindness of strangers – and new friends – things are looking up.

A startling list of people and companies have volunteered time, money or expertise. Among the free or greatly discounted goods and services pledged: a sprinkler system; a security system; architecture, engineering and land surveying services; computers; plumbing; electrical work; floors and carpets; roof shingles; and a heating system.

And ordinary people have given tens of thousands of dollars.

“We kind of have our own extreme makeover going on,” said Cisco Nochera, a retired special education teacher who runs the center along with his wife, Carla, a speech and language pathologist with county schools.

The turnaround started one morning at Cookie’s Kitchen in Pasadena, Cisco Nochera’s regular breakfast spot.

Nochera was showing a newspaper story about the fire to another customer, who called over owner Cookie Kiser and suggested she help out.

Kiser knew nothing about Nochera beyond the fact he came into her restaurant often. But before long, she had organized a spaghetti dinner, silent auction and 50-50 raffle for the Cisco Center. She put signs up in the restaurant and spread the word that the center needed help. In all, she’s helped raise close to $30,000.

“If they don’t deserve this kind of help, who does?” Kiser said of the special needs kids.

Nochera said close to $80,000 worth of donated work has been offered. Still, he said, it will cost $80,000 to $150,000 to rebuild.

Ben Poe, a semiretired builder, has headed up the efforts at Kiser’s request. He is the general contractor, though he laughingly described Kiser as “the queen bee.”

The county has granted a demolition permit, and the top floor is gone. A building permit application is still pending, but Poe said the school’s doors could open 45 days after the county approves it.

Beyond the professionals who’ve offered help, regular people have written checks or volunteered to come help out by painting or doing whatever they could.

Nochera sent out an e-mail appealing for donated school supplies, since the fire destroyed so much.

“We were just inundated,” he said. “We had so much stuff we didn’t know what to do with it.”

The county school system volunteered its warehouse and workers to move and store some of it. The rest is split between the Nocheras’ house, two parents’ homes and a church.

The center got a $2,000 donation from the Christ Child Society, which Nochera had never even heard of. Another check came from an anonymous group of women who pool money to donate to worthy projects
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