History of Little City

Some of the founding parents gather for a photo shortly after Little City opened in 1959.

Created from the dream of a group of committed parents, Little City Foundation opened its doors more than 50 years ago to provide help, hope, dignity and love for children with disabilities. It was a vision that would develop into a revolutionary new environment and concept in services for these children who “experts” often said should be institutionalized.

One of the three original buildings was the administration center.

Today, the people of Little City continue to carry out that dream with our mission to ensure that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are provided with the best options and opportunities to live safely, work productively, explore creatively and learn continuously throughout their lifetime.

Since 1959, starting with just three small buildings and 16 residents, Little City provided cutting-edge, innovative services at its 56-acre main campus in Palatine and through its offices in Chicago, which serve as the agency’s headquarters for foster care, adoption and other therapeutic and clinical support services for families. Today, Little City assists hundreds of children and adults along with their families throughout the Chicago area.

Driven to empower people with disabilities by providing education, training, skills and encouragement that enable individuals to become all that they can be, Little City offers extensive programs to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism, cerebral palsy and epilepsy, as well as visual, behavioral, hearing and emotional challenges.

For more than 50 years, Little City has continuously grown and expanded its service offerings assisting many others in need:

The Educational Development Center (EDC) opened its doors in 1964, creating a fully operational year-round school that focused on the educational needs of children with disabilities.
In 1978, the Karyn Kupcinet Recreation Center opened to help satisfy children’s needs for adaptive recreational programming and sensory stimulating activities.
Little City opened the Port Center in 1981 to provide supported apartment and community living opportunities for adults with developmental challenges, including some of the grown up original 16 children. More than a place to live, the Port Center became a community and a teaching tool, enabling those young adults to acquire the life skills to achieve greater independence.

In the 1960s, people would drive for miles to get fresh eggs from Little City’s chicken farm, one of the many successful business ventures the organization created over the years.
The Media Arts Center opened in 1985 and launched Project VITAL to give people with disabilities a voice in the larger community by providing job skills in media production through the creation, development and dissemination of cable access television programs.
The supported employment program began in 1987, giving adults with developmental disabilities the training and support they need to acquire and retain employment opportunities, either on campus in our sheltered workshop or in one of more than 70 corporations throughout the Chicago area.
Families One was launched in 1988 to provide in-home support to the families of children with disabilities, enabling the child to live with his birth family for longer periods of time. The program is now called ChildBridge Community Services.
Little City’s first Community Integrated Living Arrangement (CILA) was opened in 1989, enabling adults to experience independent living in a community-based setting.
The award-winning Studio Arts program was launched in 1993. The program allows participants to explore their own creativity in a variety of artistic media, with trained professional artists serving as facilitators. The program has provided opportunities for participants to display their work internationally and to teach and learn about art at Chicago’s Art Institute, Columbia College and the University of Illinois.
Another milestone in 1993 was the introduction of the special needs foster care program that seeks to place children with disabilities, who are wards of the state, in loving, specially trained foster homes. That program was followed in 1997 by the special needs adoption program, which has successfully placed more than 125 children with disabilities in loving permanent homes.
In 2003, Little City began the development of entrepreneurial ventures located on campus that would provide opportunities for people with disabilities to work in businesses that match their training and needs.

In 1985, Little City launched “Project VITAL,” which allowed residents to start their own TV station and produce shows that were shown on cable television. The program was the first of its kind in the nation.
The first venture was the Design Center, where original artwork created by artists in the studio program is transformed into fabrics that are then used in the manufacture of products, including pillows, designer baby blankets, table linens and clothing.
Next to open was Little City Shredders, a document destruction service, and Little City Burners, a CD/DVD duplication service. And in December 2005, Little City reopened its resale shop, The Front Porch, now known as "Encore."
In 2008, the shredding business is expanded in a partnership that begins with Midway Moving Company’s Document Destruction Division. Through the partnership, Little City receives a percentage of all document destruction sales, and is able to provide more jobs for Little City residents. Later in 2008, the greenhouse reopens in its first phase of providing horticulture positions for Little City residents, as they begin to grow herbs, plants and vegetables that will be used for cooking on campus and for sale to the public.
On October 1, 2009, Little City Foundation celebrated 50 years of dedicated, leading-edge services with the Little City Strategic Plan well underway assuring success and sustainability for the next 50 years.

Little City historical photos

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