HISTORY

WHO WE ARE

In 1955, a group of Southwestern Minnesota residents, concerned over the manner in which educable physically handicapped children in the state were being neglected, organized the SW Minnesota Crippled Children’s School, Inc.

In November 1957, the SW Minnesota Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Worthington was closed for a lack of patients and was offered for sale.  The new corporation purchased the buildings and property for $75,000 and engaged an architectural firm to plan its conversion into dorms and classrooms suitable for special education purposes.  In 1960, the Attorney General ruled that group living was part of the education of handicapped children, so the Worthington School District 518 leased these facilities and grounds for Lakeview School.

• 1963 — Name shortened to Crippled Children’s School, Inc. – CCSI
• 1967 — The Achievement Center opens with first client
• 1974 — McMillan Home opens on McMillan Street
• 1975 — Begins services as an ICF/MR facility
• 1982 — Semi-Independent Living Services (SILS) begins
• 1983 — Windsor Apartment opens
• 1983 — Community Living Alternatives, CCSI’s waivered service program, begins
• 1987 — Began providing services in Windom
• 1988 — CCSI opens its first waivered home in Sibley, Iowa
• 1990 — Name of corporation changed to Client Community Services, Inc. – CCSI
• 1990 — Luverne begins waivered services
• 2001 — CCSI constructs its first new, handicapped accessible home at 1005 E. Ninth Avenue
• 2006 — On June 2, 2006, Corporate Offices moved to Downtown Worthington at 826 Fifth Avenue. The property at 1930 First Avenue SW was sold to a developer group and the buildings were demolished in fall 2006.

Since 1990, CCSI’s growth has been in the waivered services program. We currently own 8 homes in Worthington, 2 in Windom, 2 in Luverne and 2 in Sibley, Iowa.  There are also sites in various towns in Southwest Minnesota where staff provides semi-independent living services in the individual’s private home.