CSBJ Daily

Easter Seals Southern Colorado has disassociated itself from the national Easter Seals organization.

It is now Disability Services of Colorado.

Last year, the board of directors for Easter Seals Inc. decided to designate one office per state as the official reporting affiliate. Board members chose the Denver office for Colorado and asked the southern Colorado office to merge with Denver.

Merging would have meant that local donations would go to Denver and then be redistributed to the Pikes Peak region.

“We talked with our donors and they weren’t really wanting that to happen, said office manager Judy Cowan. “They just didn’t feel like that was a good idea.”

So, now the office, which has been around for 80 years under a number of different names, operates independently but has maintained the same nonprofit status.

“Nothing has changed except the name,” Cowan said, adding that the services, board members and office address, 225 South Academy Blvd., Suite 104, have not changed.

“It’s kind of like starting over but a lot of people didn’t know what we were doing anyway,” she said.