www.qns.com APRIL 1, 2022 24RIDGEWOOD TIMES
Life’s WORC celebrates 50 years
of helping people with autism
BY QNS STAFF
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
Victoria Schneps is a dynamo of devotion
and a catalyst for change for the
needs of individuals with autism,
developmental disabilities, and special
needs. For over a half century, Schneps
has made it her life’s work to support Life’s
WORC, an organization that she founded
50 years ago — and the tens of thousands
of lives that they have positively impacted,
cared for with dignity, and improved their
quality of life.
For Schneps, her passion began with
personal experience. Her daughter, Lara,
suffered brain damage and seizures in
her infancy. As a devoted parent, she
first sought a cure for her daughter’s
injuries, a search that later evolved into
one for quality care. She located the Willowbrook
State School on Staten Island,
which was able to accept Lara in their
Infant Rehabilitation center.
It was Willowbrook that changed
Schneps’ life, and it was Schneps who
then changed the lives of countless individuals
with special needs. Schneps,
at the time a public school teacher in
New York City, started Life’s WORC, an
acronym for Women’s Organization for
Retarded Children, as an advocacy, fundraising,
and volunteer organization.
Hosting the organization’s foundational
meeting in the living room of her home,
Life’s WORC — founded primarily with
neighbors and friends with healthy
children who wanted to help — sought
to aid the facility.
“They all felt compelled to volunteer
because they were blessed with healthy
children, many saying, ‘There but for
the grace of God, go I,’” said Schneps.
However, shortly thereafter, New
York State instituted significant budget
cuts to the programs for this vulnerable
population. With new limitations of resources
came drastic negative impacts to
the quality of care. Seeing firsthand the
deplorable conditions at Willowbrook,
Schneps and the women of Life’s WORC
turned from volunteers into picketers
and protestors, to bring change.
“We started a women’s organization
to help volunteer and raise money for
Willowbrook,” Schneps recalled. “About
a year after we started our efforts, Gov.
Nelson Rockefeller slashed the budget.
With these slashes came drastic changes
in the quality of care. These people at
Willowbrook were helpless, like my
daughter. They were living in conditions
that were unsuitable for anyone
— especially those, like my daughter, who
required around-the-clock care to be fed,
to be diapered, and bathed.”
The facility was forcing children and
others into tragic conditions that were
both unsanitary and inhumane. At the
same time, a young journalist was made
aware of the problems arising at Willowbrook,
thanks to Schneps. That reporter
was Geraldo Rivera, who set his sights
on telling the stories of the families and
individuals at the facility — an expose
that would shock the world.
“I connected with Geraldo Rivera and
he was snuck into the facility by a doctor
who worked there,” Schneps said.
“People were actually dying and Geraldo
recognized the sad and tragic conditions
that myself and many like me were going
through, as our family members were
helpless. Geraldo’s recognition of the
importance of this story is why he is
forever linked with our movement, our
advocacy, and is a real champion for the
needs of this community.”
Meanwhile, Vicki’s husband, an attorney,
encouraged the families of Willowbrook
to file a class action lawsuit
Victoria Schneps protesting the conditions at Willowbrook State School.
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