About DayBridge
DayBridge provides community-based day services to our neighbors needing friendly support.
The DayBridge “Platform”
We offer two types of services: DayBridge Communities, location-based recreational day services and Community Guide & Engagement Services, helping neighbors who may need some help accessing community support and opening up new interests.
DayBridge Day Services
4202 N. Belt St. in the beautiful Shadle Park area in north Spokane, Wa.
We work with compassionate community members to develop a flow of government funds for the provision of services. We develop further programs from this predictable base.
DayBridge Community based Services
Services are delivered in the community leveraging and supporting local resources.
We then help the community thrive by providing different levels of ongoing support, depending upon the needs and preferences of the community.
Our History
DayBridge is operated by The Parents’ Cooperative Society, who has been supporting Families Helping Families since its inception in 1961.
In the 1950’s there was a group of Spokane families seeking positive solutions for their children with severe disabilities. The choices were very limited at the time. Public schools would not even serve children who could not negotiate the stairs or made too much noise.
One of the original parents, Kaye Epton, while serving in the state House of Representatives, created legislation allowing families, for the first time, to divert resources away from institutional care to community support. The Epton Act passed in 1959 and remains one of the central legislative victories for persons with disabilities and their families in Washington State.
Parents’ Cooperative Society using this new legislation, established Merry Glen as a day program in 1961, and then went on to add a residential component in 1973. Some of the folks who first started calling Merry Glen home back then still live with us today.
In recent history, Parents’ Cooperative Society has begun new day programs and has been coordinating the necessary resources to help other individuals, families, and communities bring this unique service model to more communities in need.