Dorothy Whitfield
Founder & Executive DirectorFormer special-ed teacher and parent of a member. Ten years and counting.
Annual community lunch · 2024 cohort
When a child with a disability turns 22, the school bus stops coming. The structured days—the teachers, the friends, the routines—stop with it. Families are left to figure out what comes next, mostly on their own.
Dorothy Whitfield was one of those parents. So in 2015 she did what mothers do when there's no good option: she made one. Three young adults, including her son Marcus, came to a borrowed church basement once a week. They played cards. They took the bus downtown. They went to the library. That was ACEF, year one.
Ten years later, more than a hundred and twenty members come to The Center every week. Our days are full of outings, classes, recreation, and celebration. We've added staff, programs, partners, and a second site. But the premise hasn't changed: adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities deserve full days, full lives, and full membership in their community.
Marcus is now thirty-one. He still comes in on Tuesdays.
Our members make choices about their own days—what to wear, where to go, who to sit with. We resist the urge to do for them what they can do themselves.
The work happens out in the city—museums, parks, restaurants, libraries. Inclusion that doesn't include the public isn't inclusion.
We don't graduate people. We stay with them. Some members have been with us since the first year and we plan to be there in the tenth.
Parents and caregivers know what their loved ones need. We listen first. Our quarterly Family Council shapes every season's plan.
No member is turned away for inability to pay. Our 990s and audited financials are linked at the bottom of every page.
Former special-ed teacher and parent of a member. Ten years and counting.
Builds the seasonal calendar and runs The Studio. Painter, woodworker.
Schedules the outings and keeps a Rolodex of every partner venue in Atlanta.
Twenty years in adult education. Runs personal-care, money sense, and reading.
Dorothy Whitfield runs the first weekly program out of borrowed space at Faith United.
A dedicated building, a small van, and our first three full-time staff.
Painting, gardening, and a regular practice of making something. Members lead the curriculum.
Three to five outings a week becomes the norm. Partnerships with the Delta Flight Museum and Atlanta Public Library begin.
The Family Council is formed. Volunteer base hits 60.
Rebuilding the platform and breaking ground on a second site in South Atlanta.