RE-PURPOSE: New Danville market will help fund child development center

Saying Blue Bird Market is a new furniture and home decor store is like saying Wilderness Trace Child Development Center is a daycare center.

Both statements are true, but each is so much more.

WTCDC, serving children from childbirth through 5 years old, started in the mid-1980s to help children with disabilities. Over time, the center has seen the value of co-mingling their special-needs children with what they call “typical” children in shared classrooms. Coping with or overcoming disabilities becomes just a bit easier with same-sized models. 

“Typical” kids also learn lessons in finding the similarities as opposed to focusing on the differences in others when that “different” kid with cerebral palsy or autism is now a classmate and friend.

There is a lovely symbiotic relationship — both giving and receiving.

That is how WTCDC works.

How Blue Bird Market works is, first, donate quality items. Then have the items picked up, if needed, and receive a tax deduction for the donation. The Blue Bird Market then sells those items. Revenue from the sale of the items supports Wilderness Trace Child Development Center.

There is a lovely symbiotic relationship — both giving and receiving.

Libby Suttles and her husband, Dale, have a “typical” kid, Taylor, who is now 24. They also have a 13-year-old special-needs son, Matthew, whom they fell in love with as a foster baby and adopted at 14 months old.

“We moved to Danville because of Wilderness Trace,” she says. “Matt was there from 2 years old until 5 1⁄2. They taught him to sign. He learned to walk there.”

Suttles recently left her position with Heart of Kentucky United Way as director of marketing to come to work for WTCDC in much the same capacity. She says her relationship with United Way, one of the financial streams supporting WTCDC, will be valuable to her new position. One of her first fundraising ideas at her new position is Blue Bird Market. The steady income produced there will help keep the program operating.

Located at 1857 S. Danville Bypass, Blue Bird Market has access to more than 8,000 square feet of space. 

Besides Suttles, help is coming from WTCDC board members such as Kourtney Shewmaker of Harrodsburg, who is a pharmacist at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, and local veterinarian Aaron Rowland of Danville, as well as others.

“It feels kind of risky,” Shewmaker said of the new venture, “It’s a huge step to take, but we are all very excited,”

“This was Libby’s idea and, from a board perspective, it makes sense to become more financially independent,” Rowland says.

Jacob Bryant, a senior at Morehead State University is working toward his degree in social work by working with Blue Bird Market and the kids at WTCDC. 

“I¿am a big people person all the way, and I especially want to work with kids,” he says. 

“They are a pretty great bunch,” he says of the kids at WTCDC.

Travis Adams of Shelbyville, a sophomore at Centre College, is donating an average of 10 hours weekly to the Blue Bird Market as part of the Bonner Scholars, a national program where college kids work in local communities to help make a difference.

“I’ve already told people about this in Shelbyville, and I know some are planning to donate,” he says.