GREENFIELD – A local day center for those with special needs could soon double or triple its capacity.
DDSi – or Developmental Disabilities Systems, Inc. – will soon expand its facility located within the former Adaggios event center at 5999 W. Memory Lane in Greenfield.
The popular venue closed its doors after hosting its final event in April after a long run as Hancock County’s only large-scale event center.
Doug Dugger, who owned Adaggios, also owns the building that housed it.
In September 2020, he started using a small portion of the event venue to serve as the headquarters for DDSi, a behavioral services company he co-founded in 1989.
The space has served as a day center for adults with disabilities ever since, co-existing with the event space on the east end of the building.
The former event space has been home to a number of day camps for kids with disabilities throughout the summer, but those camps wrapped up on Friday.
Now Dugger plans to focus on expanding DDSi’s services throughout the facility, turning the former banquet hall into a multi-faceted center for people of varying ages with varying needs.
“We’ll have different spaces for different opportunities, similar to what we have now but in a larger capacity,” said Sara Shelton, director of support services for DDSi.
“Right now, we have an exercise center, art space and a space where they do their cooking, but it will all be on a bigger scale,” she said.
The participants stay busily engaged each day, said Shelton, going on field trips and practicing life skills.
They group makes cupcakes for everyone’s birthdays and participates in bake sales for the Special Olympics.
They also go on regular outings to nearby parks, farms, museums and other destinations.
“We try to take advantage of being outside as much as possible,” said Shelton.
Participants are also given the opportunity to work on job scholarships and pre-vocational skills, and volunteer with local organizations like Gleaners Food Bank, Lambswear, and St. Vincent de Paul.
Four times a month, the group works with Buttermilk Mountain, an Indianapolis-based nonprofit which allows them to develop job skills by making dog biscuits and selling them at local farmers markets.
Shelton feels it’s essential to keep program participants engaged in their community.
“I want them to be very involved in their community and not just be on the receiving end of things. I want them to be active members,” she said.
“Everyone has an opportunity to learn and teach something, and so it’s important that they’re all given an opportunity to learn from each other.”
The DDSi day center currently has 58 enrolled participants ranging in age from 18-72, including residents of Hancock, Shelby and Marion counties.
Shelton is excited to see the program grow and welcome more clients.
She said the expansion marks a positive period of growth for DDSi, which offers not only adult day services but also behavior consulting services and PAC services, or Participant Assistance and Care.
Shelton said the company also has plans to start a Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) center at a different location.
As the DDSi center expands within its current location in the coming weeks, local event planners who long relied on Adaggios are on the hunt for new venues.
Ginny Brown, director of the Greenfield Central Education Foundation, has been hosting her organization’s annual Red Letter Gala at the event center since 2016.
This September she’ll move the gala to the Community Life Center at Washington Park East, just east of Cumberland.
“The new venue is very lovely but it’s a shame we couldn’t stay local because we always like to support all things Greenfield,” said Brown.
For more information on DDSi, visit DDSi-in.com.
