A place to go when school bell rings

Jessica Garrison

NEWPORT-MESA -- Michelle Moon is a junior at Corona del Mar High

School. She’s also developmentally disabled and, according to her mother

Denise, is in many ways more like a 6-year-old than a 16-year-old.

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to have a life in the

afternoons after school just like any other teenager.

And her parents were determined to give it to her -- and in the

process they opened up opportunities for other Newport-Mesa students.

On Monday afternoon, with state Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer,

Supervisor Jim Silva, Costa Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan and the Rev. Douglas

Cook in attendance, the Moons presided over the opening of the district’s

first after-school program for developmentally disabled students.

The program, which is funded by a $100,000, three-year grant from the

Moons and run by the Crippled Children’s Society, will offer after-school

activities for Newport-Mesa students ages 5 to 18 in a brightly decorated

classroom at Monte Vista High School in Costa Mesa.

Ritchie Geisel, president of the Crippled Children’s Society, said he

hopes the program will be the beginning of a massive expansion of

services for disabled students and adults in Orange County. He also said

the Crippled Children’s Society, a 70-year-old organization helping the

developmentally disabled, will change its name in the next few months for

a more politically correct moniker.

Brewer said the program will be a model for all others to follow.

Monahan, whose son is developmentally disabled, said he is proud the

program is coming to the city, and that his son probably will attend.

One of the program’s new students, Robert Ross, 5, also was excited.

“Where’s the cake?” screamed the Victoria Elementary School student,

who suffers from Down’s syndrome, almost drowning Silva’s speech.

When no cake was immediately forthcoming, Robert got up from his seat

near his teacher and went to sit near a friend.

As if proving the speakers’ points that developmentally disabled

students also need friends after school, he and his friend spent the next

30 minutes whispering quietly to each other. Above them on the small

stage, public officials proclaimed the importance of after-school

programs.

“We moved here a couple of years ago and found there were no

after-school programs,” Denise Moon said. “We wanted to bring that here

to this district.”