This year marks Marbridge’s 70th anniversary of serving adults with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. Studio 512 visited with Will Hoermann, Director of Admissions & Elaine Wilson, Mother of Marbridge Resident, to learn more about the foundation.

Will, you serve as the Director of Admissions and you meet with families and prospective residents and help them find the best community for them. Can you talk about Marbridge’s three care communities and the residents you serve in each?

“Marbridge is a non-profit residential community that offers transitional and lifetime care to adults with a wide range of cognitive disabilities and — through compassion and faith — provides them opportunities to learn, experience, and achieve a whole new life.

“In 1953, Ed and Marge Bridges founded Marbridge in an effort to create safe residential care for their son, Jim, and other adults with cognitive disabilities. From the beginning, Marbridge charted a dramatically different course compared to the institutions of the day. It offered training based on the philosophy that adults with developmental disabilities can learn skills that enable them to become contributing members of the community.

“We have a 200-acre campus in Manchaca that serves 275 adults with cognitive and intellectual disabilities with three unique care communities: The Village is a semi-independent community, The Ranch is an assisted living community, and The Villa is a skilled nursing community.

“What makes Marbridge unique is that we are only one of three facilities in the country that will take an adult on from the age of 18 to the end of life.”

Elaine, tell us about your son, Tyler, and how he’s doing at Marbridge.

“My son is Tyler, 23 years old, and he’s into choir, musical theater and cycling, all of which he gets to do here at Marbridge. He’s so happy. He has an incredible memory for movies/pop culture and is a big Mario fan. He’s been at Marbridge about a year and a half, and we actually moved our family to Central Texas to be near Marbridge. We found it online and knew it was the right fit for us. There’s a lot of fear that comes with being the mother of an adult with disabilities; you want to make sure he’s safe, he’s cared for, and he’s content. We have peace of mind with him being here at Marbridge.”

To learn more about what Marbridge has to offer, go to Marbridge.org.

This segment is paid for by Marbridge Foundation and is intended as an advertisement. Opinions expressed by the guest(s) on this program are solely those of the guest(s) and are not endorsed by this television station.