22 dec 2006
MARC stands for Monroe Association for Retarded Citizens. Key West loves its retarded citizens and takes very good care of them. The MARC family rents a large space and runs a garden center where everyone shops for plants and orchids. They live in a group home, a pair of pretty little houses in old town. We all buy our Christmas trees and wreaths and poinsettias at their sale. The Rotary and Zonta and other groups work the Christmas tree sales nights. If there's a fundraiser with MARC stamped on it, everyone goes and everyone gives. I regularly see one of the guys riding his bike to work at the garden center. We wave and smile hello. They are a part of our lives in Key West. Thank God for MARC and the group home and the people who work for them, care for them and fundraise for them.
Because, in Costa Rica, I don't see anything like that. I often see elderly parents with their older retarded children riding the bus, shopping in stores