GENEVA, Neb. - After a few months of preparation, on Wednesday afternoon in Geneva statewide support organization Apace debuted its new day center, which will serve as a daily home base for individuals with disabilities in Geneva and in the greater Fillmore County area.  

Apace serves individuals, either through these daily programs, through residential services, or both, in many other areas across Southeast Nebraska, but there was nothing like that offered in Geneva, until now.  

“It really created a void of services for us. If somebody wanted support, from us or another provider, they would have to spend several hours a day on a van traveling from one location to another, and at the core that’s not what we do,” Apace CEO Matt Kasik said. “We want to be in the community with individuals where they live, so they can meet their goals and do what they want to do in their own communities where they already are.” 

“The need was great for this area for sure,” said Joe Miller, Apace’s community support coordinator for the Geneva operation. “Being a local guy, Geneva born and raised, I have a lot of connections in the community. And we’ve had tremendous support in the community, especially with the open house, I’ve had many people come up to me and say, ‘This has been well overdue, we needed something like this,’” 

Close to a hundred people attended Wednesday’s official grand opening for a building that has now been in operation for a couple of weeks. Formerly a physician’s clinic, the space now features workspaces for staff members and health professionals, and many rooms designed to help the patients train skills that will help them both personally and professionally. 

“As lovely as our facility here is, our most important work is done outside the building,” Miller said. “And everything done inside is preparation for what goes on outside. We have programs we work on, tailored for each individual. We train them inside the facility on things they can take outside the facility and use in their daily lives.” 

“Decades ago, there weren’t these types of supports for individuals with disabilities,” Kasik said. “Really back then the only option was institutional living. So we’ve worked very hard to change that, and support individuals where they live so they aren’t pushed away, out of society, essentially.” 

There are programs in Fillmore County aimed at youths with disabilities, such as ones offered at Fillmore Central High School just minutes away from this day center, but once they reach age 21 and age out of those programs, there often is no official place for them to go or support offered to them. And that’s where Apace steps in, to help put those folks on the pathway towards full integration with their local communities now that they’ve become adults.  

“Once kids age out of the program at Fillmore Central, there becomes the question of where do they go, now what do they do?” Miller said. “We have two individuals that said after they aged out of the high school program at 21, they were just sitting at home, bored, nothing to do. The ball was dropped, there was nothing for them. And so having this service there, is just bridging that gap for them, and helping them find a purpose for the rest of their lives.” 

This is the 21st center like this that Apace operates throughout the state. They’ve already begun assisting two people in town, with hopes to assist as many as a dozen when the staffing and the interest demand it – though they know it will take some time to build to that point.  

“It’s not common for providers like Apace to be opening locations,” said Kasik. “There’s not a lot of money in our field for innovation and new things, so opening a location without knowing how many folks we could support is a bit of a risk, but we felt it was the right thing to do and we were willing to take that risk just to provide the community with this resource.”