Our Story

In 1999, Carrie McGee met Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen while searching for a therapist to work with her son, Alexander, diagnosed in 1996 with Williams Syndrome. At the time, balance and coordination were such serious issues that he had difficulty negotiating uneven surfaces, and even a small flight of stairs terrified him.

After a year of regular therapy with Bonnie, utilizing the Body Mind Centering® techniques which she developed, Alex had improved to such a degree that he was climbing playground structures. A year after that, he was turning cartwheels. Carrie watched as the development of these physical skills brought about astonishing changes in Alex. More adept at managing the sensory input of the world around him, his cognition improved as did his ability to participate happily and fully in a mainstream classroom.

Having learned from Alexander’s success, and hoping to use her background as a Health Services Administrator and twenty years’ experience teaching gymnastics, Carrie proposed a collaboration using Bonnie’s therapy techniques (Body-Mind Centering®) in a weekly gymnastics class for children with a variety of special needs. The class filled so quickly that Annemarie Flaherty, a longtime gymnastics instructor with a decade of experience working with special needs children, was brought on board.

For the next two years, the Body Mind Centering® -Gymnastics program was held each summer. Classes were refined and developed to accommodate a wide variety of participants with many different types of special needs, including Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Downs Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy, siezure disorders and sensory integration issues.

As the word spread and enrollment increased each summer, Carrie, Bonnie, Annemarie and a core group of parents saw an obvious need for more classes with greater variety that continued throughout the year – a center dedicated to families raising children with special needs. The concept of Whole Children took shape, a Board of Directors formed and incorporated, and in March, 2004, they were granted tax exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3).

After a year of searching, in early 2004 a site to house Whole Children was found at 8 River Drive in Hadley, Massachusetts. It is a 2000 square foot building with office space and a large adaptable room, all designed to beautifully facilitate the original vision of the parents group: a place where our special children can be accomodated and challenged physically, intellectually, and creatively through a variety of classes including the original Body Mind Centering® -Gymnastics Program and more: Yoga, Dance, Martial Arts, Music, Social Skills, and other creative and alternative approaches to development. The layout also includes a resource library, an educational and adaptive toy-lending program, and a meeting place for the special needs community.

Whole Children, Inc. represents a group of parents who have learned that, given the opportunity, our children can far surpass even our own expectations, and the more doors which are open to them, the more they may discover the worlds that await their success.