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'One of Jacksonville's heroes': Nonprofit leader to retire after founding child-care haven for special-needs families

Florida Times-Union - 12/27/2019

Almost 30 years after founding an inclusive child-care center, Amy Buggle has plenty of success stories to tell.

• A center teacher asking Buggle to witness a momentous occurrence in the life of a child who had spina bifida, a birth defect that occurs when the spine and spinal cord don't form properly. The child had pulled herself up to stand in her crib.

• The special-needs boy who was the subject of "do not resuscitate" orders as a baby but went on to graduate high school early with dual enrollment and an associate's degree.

• Getting her first big grant, $25,000 from the United Way of Northeast Florida.

"Many of my favorite moments are those of individual children that beat the odds. Those that ... continue living and thriving and accomplishing goals," she said.

But that grant was just as affirming.

"I had never seen that much money at one time and it was so exciting to realize that other people believed in what I was doing and wanted to help us," she said.

At year's end, Buggle plans to retire and hand the reigns of DLC (Developmental Learning Center) Nurse & Learn in Jacksonville to chief operating officer and nonprofit veteran Heather Corey.

Buggle, 57, plans to "decompress," spend more time with her husband, mother and grandchildren. She also plans to find a publisher for her book about how her life, even her childhood, prepared her for DLC.

"It still seems so unbelievable to me that a special education teacher had an idea and has been able start a nonprofit and to keep it afloat for 30 years when I watched larger organizations and even huge businesses fail," she said. "I have definitely seen God's hand in this every step of the way."

Still, she'll miss witnessing the success stories, Buggle said.

"It is a bittersweet time for me, I feel like I'm letting go of a third child," she said. "I feel completely confident in Heather Corey ... and also I have complete confidence in the rest of the administrative staff. I truly believe it was time for new leadership and new ideas."

The first idea came in the 1980s when Buggle was a teacher at Mount Herman Exceptional Student Center, a Duval County public school for students with intellectual and physical disabilities. She saw that most of her students' parents could not maintain full-time employment because of a lack of child care for their special-needs children.

She looked for a solution and did not find one. So she decided to be the solution.

"As I started researching I realized infants and preschoolers with medical problems were not even welcome at programs designed for kids with special needs," she said. "I did originally have a literal dream. I'd been thinking about child care for kids with special needs for a couple of years and then had a dream about opening one in the empty Sunday school rooms of a church."

That's where Buggle founded DLC, which she said has since grown from one classroom with a handful of students and a staff of "me, myself and I" to two locations, 10 classrooms and a staff of 30. In 2003 the center became a "full-inclusion program," serving special-needs children and "typical" children.

"DLC has certainly grown beyond my wildest dreams," she said. "We have served now over 4,500 students and allowed their families to go back to work full-time. It has been an amazing ride."

Buggle clearly remembers the beginning in 1989, in those empty Sunday school rooms of Murray Hill United Methodist Church, a block and a half away from her house.

"That became our first home and is still opening up more space for us today. Everyone there had a connection with special needs, including the pastor and program director at the time. It was a match made in heaven," she said.

Within its first few years, the center hired a nurse to take care of students' medical issues and served infants through school-age students. Later, therapy services were added so that parents did not have to leave work to take their children to therapy.

Then in 2003 Lakeshore Presbyterian Church, which had closed its preschool program and heard DLC wanted to expand, offered the space as the site of the center's second location.

"I never envisioned it as large as it has become," Buggle said.

DLC currently serves children of all abilities, including some with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, spina bifida and seizure disorders, and provides them with child care, preschool, extended-day programs, registered nursing care and physical, occupational and speech therapy. The center has classrooms for infants to age 5 and after-school programs for young people up to age 22.

As the center grew, so did the challenges of caring for special-needs children. Government funding has been reduced and therapy coverage difficult to obtain, she said.

"As many of our families will tell you, if it weren't for DLC and the lifeline it provides to them, most would be completely destitute, on welfare and many times would have to place their children in group homes," she said.

Chris Gabbard and wife Ilene Chazan, whose son August attended DLC for about 12 years until he died at 14, are among those families. August was born with profound disabilities and they could not find after-school or summer care.

"Only Amy Buggle and the DLC would take him. ... Without them, either my wife or I would have had to stop working or would have had to severely cut back our working hours. This was something we could not afford to do and still pay the mortgage and for all of August's medical bills," Gabbard said. "Amy and her staff always treated our son with respect. They afforded him the dignity that is due all human beings ... Ilene and I could relax, knowing that he was being cared for by people who had love in their hearts."

August progressed from liquid sustenance to eating solid food and learned to help when being transferred to and from his wheelchair, among other advances.

"I see Amy Buggle as one of Jacksonville's heroes," Gabbard said. "I told her recently that a statue representing her ought to be erected downtown in front of City Hall ... and I meant it."

Maybe a statue would get more governmental, foundation and donor attention for DLC. With additional funding, the center could renovate existing facilities, expand further in Jacksonville and to other Florida cities and provide more therapy and nursing services regardless of families' insurance coverage, Buggle said.

"The need is so obvious and the simple solution of providing child care so families can become financially secure is such a basic concept," she said.

Buggle had a few parting words for her successor.

"The main thing I don't ever want to change is the heart behind DLC," she said. "The whole purpose ... is to support the families, which of course gives children the support they need to succeed.

"Parents can't do it alone. We need the entire community to rally around," she said. "The ways to help are endless, just help somehow."

Beth Reese Cravey: (904) 359-4109

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