Human Resources Center of Edgar and Clark Counties

09/02/2026

With Labor Day coming up next week, we have been thinking about what a job really means.

It is not only the paycheck, though the paycheck surely matters. It is having somewhere to be on Tuesday morning. It is being missed when you are out sick. It is your name written on the schedule by the back door.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities want the same thing everybody wants. Real work, real wages, alongside real coworkers.

That is the heart of Dignity in Pay. Illinois is widening the road for people with disabilities who want community jobs, and HRC is here to help our neighbors find work that actually fits them. Some folks want full time. Some want a couple of shifts a week. Some are ready this morning and some need a season of support first. Every one of those is a good answer.

And to the employers reading this, hear us plainly. Hiring someone with a disability is not charity. It is a good decision. The people we walk alongside show up, work hard, and stay. Ask a manager in Casey, Chrisman, or Marshall who has already taken that step.

If you or someone in your family is ready to talk about work, we would love to hear from you.

☎ Main Line: 217-465-4118
☎ Disability Services: 217-463-3076
☎ Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
▸ Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
▸ Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
☎ Crisis Line: 217-712-9766 (call any time, day or night)
☎ 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
www.hrcec.org

09/01/2026

Meet our Sponsor of the Month.

RWE Americas has committed $15,000 to HRC, and we could not be more grateful. RWE is developing utility scale solar projects right here in Clark County, and they chose to invest in the people who live alongside them.

“Clark County is where our projects are, but more importantly it is where our neighbors are,” said Mark Desmond, Manager of Utility Scale Development at RWE Americas. “HRC has been taking care of people here for more than fifty years, and we are glad to be part of keeping that work going.”

Here is something most folks do not know. Nearly half of the people who come to HRC for mental health care live in Clark County. This gift helps keep that care close to home.

Thank you, RWE Americas.

Call 217-465-4118 or visit hrcec.org.
988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988, any time, day or night.

08/31/2026

Today is International Overdose Awareness Day.

Across Edgar and Clark Counties there are families who have lost someone. There are also families sitting at kitchen tables this morning with someone who came back. Someone who found their footing. Someone walking through a season of renewal.

Both of those things are true, and we hold them together today.
Here is what we want every neighbor to know. Overdose is preventable. Recovery is real. People heal, rebuild, and go on to live full and ordinary good lives right here in our towns.

If you are walking this road with someone you love, you do not have to carry it alone. Our Recovery Support team walks alongside people in Paris, Marshall, Casey, Chrisman, Martinsville, and every community in between. No lectures. No judgment. A listening ear and a next step.

Reach out any time.

☎ Main Line: 217-465-4118
☎ Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
▸ Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
▸ Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
☎ Crisis Line: 217-712-9766 (call any time, day or night)
☎ 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
www.hrcec.org

08/30/2026

Two weeks out. Here are the rest of the names, and we are grateful for every one of them.

-TecDoc
-Edgar County ROSC Council, for plates, napkins, and silverware
-Lori's Pin and Needles, for a handmade table runner
-Dairy Queen, for an ice cream cake
-Rocky's Italian Bistro
-Monical's Pizza
-Los Tres
-Kurly Q
-Hand Me Down Resale

And to the neighbors bringing cupcakes and fresh produce out of their own kitchens and gardens: you are the reason this feels like a community gathering rather than an event.

Saturday, September 12. Twin Lakes Park, Paris. 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Free to attend. Come hungry.

Main Line: 217-465-4118
Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
Available: Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
Crisis Line: 217-712-9766 (call any time, day or night)
988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
www.hrcec.org

08/29/2026

A quiet truth in our counties. A great deal of the caregiving here is being done by grandparents.

Folks in their sixties and seventies who assumed this season of life would look different, now raising or caring for a grandchild with an intellectual or developmental disability. Doing it gladly. Doing it tired.

HRC's Voucher Respite program is for you too. Short breaks, trusted providers, and help with every form along the way.

You have given a great deal. It is all right to receive something. Email [email protected] or call Heidi Mitchell at 217-465-1324.

Main Line: 217-465-4118
Disability Services: 217-463-3076
Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
Available: Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
Crisis Line: 217-712-9766 (call any time, day or night)
988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
www.hrcec.org

08/28/2026

Some folks are ready for a community job tomorrow. Some are building toward one. And some want a different kind of day altogether, which is every bit as valid a choice.

HRC's Community Day Services give adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities a place to build skills, work on independence, volunteer, get out into the community, and spend the day around people who know them well.

There is no single right path. There is the path that fits the person.

Serving families from Oliver to Casey and everywhere in between. Call us and we will talk through the options with you.

Main Line: 217-465-4118
Disability Services: 217-463-3076
Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
Available: Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
www.hrcec.org

08/27/2026

Congratulations, Mikayla. 🎉

There comes a moment in every calling when the work somebody has quietly been doing finally gets its name. That moment arrived this week for Mikayla Downs, who has earned her Licensed Professional Counselor credential.

Behind those three letters are years of study, a mountain of supervised hours, late evenings tacked onto already long days, and a licensing exam that hands out nothing for free.

Behind them, too, are the neighbors Mikayla has walked alongside right here at home. People who came in weary. People carrying a difficult season they had not said out loud to anyone yet. People who found someone willing to sit with them and listen without flinching.

That is the part we are proudest of. A credential is earned on paper. Trust is earned in a quiet room, across a small table, when somebody finally sets down what they have been carrying alone.

Mikayla, thank you for your heart for service and for the steady care you bring to this community. We are so glad you are here.

And if you or someone you love is walking through a hard stretch right now, please know that reaching out is a strong thing to do, not a weak one. Our team is here, and there is no judgment waiting on this end of the line.

📞 Main Line: 217-465-4118
📞 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
🌐 www.hrcec.org

08/27/2026

Ask any prevention worker what actually protects a young person, and you will hear the same short list.

One caring adult who knows their name. Something to belong to. Clear expectations at home. A reason to look forward to Saturday.

None of that requires a program or a budget line. It requires grown-ups who decide a young person is worth their time.

HRC's prevention education team works with schools and families from Moonshine to Marshall to build those protections early, before a crisis makes them urgent. If you would like to bring prevention education to your school or youth group, reach out.

Main Line: 217-465-4118
Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
Available: Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
Crisis Line: 217-712-9766 (call any time, day or night)
988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
www.hrcec.org

08/27/2026

Some good news made the evening broadcast this week.

📺 WTHI News 10 came out to tell our neighbors about something we have been eager to share. HRC has been awarded a Voucher Respite grant, and it means real help for families caring for a child or an adult with an intellectual or developmental disability.

If you are one of those families, you already know the shape of the day. The early mornings. The appointments. The evening that asks more of you than you had left to give. Caregiving is a calling, and it is also heavy work, and nobody was ever meant to carry it without setting it down now and then.

💛 Voucher Respite is new this year, and it is built for families who do not currently have Waiver Services. You are the one who decides who comes through your door. HRC walks alongside you to identify and arrange an eligible caregiver on a schedule that actually fits your family, and the program covers the approved cost through a voucher. It is available at every age, from birth through every stage of life.

Executive Director Susan Tybon told News 10 the grant lets HRC expand into other counties and "help caregivers take care of their loved ones by simply taking a break."

🌾 We are serving families in Edgar, Clark, Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Crawford, Jasper, and Vermilion Counties. From the courthouse square in Paris to the back roads of Clark County, there are families doing this quiet work every single day. This is for them.

Respite is first come, first served and depends on the funding available, so if this sounds like your family, reach out sooner rather than later. The intake is simple and we will walk you through every step of it.

Respite is not stepping away from someone you love. It is making sure you are still standing strong enough to keep walking alongside them.

▶️ Watch the story from WTHI News 10: https://www.wthitv.com/2026/08/24/human-resources-center-awarded-voucher-respite-grant/

✉️ To find out whether your family qualifies, email [email protected] or call Heidi Mitchell at 217-465-1324.

Group Respite and Voucher Respite are funded in whole or in part by the Illinois Department of Human Services, Division of Developmental Disabilities.

📞 Main Line: 217-465-4118
📞 Disability Services: 217-463-3076
📞 Living Room Program: 217-465-4751
　📍 Visit in person: Life Center, 745 E. Court St., Paris
　🕗 Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
📞 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
🌐 www.hrcec.org

Grant will fund short-term respite care for families outside Medicaid waiver system

08/26/2026

A quiet thank you to Dolly.

Some folks you never meet, and yet they end up part of your family’s story anyway.

Dolly Parton passed away Tuesday in Nashville at the age of 80. Here in Edgar County, her name has been showing up in mailboxes month after month, printed on the front of a book with a child’s own name right above it. HRC is the local program partner for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library in Edgar County, alongside our local champion the Paris Altrusa Club, and together we have had the honor of helping put those books into small hands, birth through age five, at no cost to the family.

She started the Imagination Library back in 1995 because her own daddy could not read or write. She said more than once that it was the most important thing she ever did. Not the records. Not the awards. The books.

That tells you most of what you need to know about her.

There are not many people left that this whole country can agree on. Dolly was one of them. She had a way of making everybody feel like she was theirs, whether you grew up on her music or met her through an envelope that came in the mail with your name on it. She was warm without being soft, faithful without being preachy, and generous in a way that never asked for anything back.

Flags across Illinois are flying at half-staff in her honor through Tuesday.

And the books will keep coming. Her family has said so, the Imagination Library has said so, and so do we. Every month, in Paris and Chrisman and Kansas and Hume and Brocton and Metcalf, another envelope will land with a child’s name on it.

That is the kind of legacy that outlasts all of us.

If you have a child under five in Edgar County, you can sign them up today:
📚 imaginationlibrary.com/usa/affiliate/ILEDGAR

Clark County families, you have a program of your own. The folks at Marshall Public Library can get your child signed up.

Thank you, Dolly. We will take it from here.

📞 Main Line: 217-465-4118
📞 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (call or text, day or night)
🌐 www.hrcec.org