DuPage Community Foundation Grant Supports EAGLES Expansion

The EAGLE’s program’s mantra states, “Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can fly.”

Participants in the day program for adults with special needs will now get to fly a little bit farther with the help of a grant from the DuPage Community Foundation.

The foundation awarded special recreation group SEASPAR $5,000 this week to expand and support the EAGLES program.

Each weekday, up to 17 young adults with disabilities spend their days at the Eagle’s Nest, located on the second floor of the Darien Sportsplex, program coordinator Laura Christensen said.

There they learn skills for living independently that will help them transition to life beyond high school, she said.

“When they leave high school, it’s a really big change,” Christensen said. “It’s really reassuring for them to know there’s a ‘what’s next.’”

The grant from the Community Foundation will go toward maintaining the three-year-old Darien facility while SEASPAR renovates a second, newer EAGLES location in Brookfield, Christensen said.

“We want to really make it a second home away from home,” she said.

Downers Grove-based SEASPAR was one of 33 DuPage County nonprofit organizations the Community Foundation awarded grants to this week. The grants total $255,000.

"The recipient organizations are providing extremely valuable services to the community, and we're proud to be a partner in helping them expand their overall efforts in improving the quality of life in DuPage County," said the foundation’s director of grants, Barb Szczepaniak, in a statement.