spotlight: TAVON CENTER
PLANTING THE SEEDS
OF OPPORTUNITY By Shannon Messenger Several years ago, Ali Vafaeezadeh, ’86, and his wife, Therese, were struggling to figure out what to do when their disabled daughter, Sabah, turned 18. “It really hit home when we found ourselves filling out guardianship paperwork when other parents were working on college applications. The options for our daughter after high school were dismal,” says Ali. In the fall of 2008, they opened the Tavon Center in Issaquah, which features a teaching facility and therapy gardens. It’s a place where disabled young adults whose limitations preclude regular employment can continue to learn life skills after high school and become contributing members of the community. The program focuses on horticulture as a form of sensory therapy—Sabah loves being outdoors and digging in the dirt—as well as a means to develop gardening skills and community-based entrepreneurship. The first harvest of Tavon crops was sold at the Issaquah Farmers Market this past 14
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summer. The teaching center is equipped with a full kitchen where students learn nutrition, meal preparation and to bake goods destined for sale at local coffee shops. Ali came to the U.S. from Iran in 1976 because
“ Watching our clients spend time together has been amazing.” his parents were determined that he be educated in the States. He graduated from UW in 1986 with degrees in art and architecture, and started his own residential design-build company, Bana Design. Sabah—the first of their three children—was born in 1984. Her disability, recognized early but to this day still undiagnosed, set the Vafaeezadahs on a mission to provide the best care and most normal upbringing available. Sabah spent several years in public and private school programs, but at graduation found few opportunities for continued participation in her community. “Once we
Left: Ali Vafaeezadeh, ’86, founded the Tavon Center after wondering how his disabled teenage daughter would handle life after high school; Top right: sale of goodies made at the Tavon Center raise money for programs; Bottom right: therapy with animals at the Tavon’s Casa deGoats has had a big impact on clients. Photos by Karen Orders.
understood the reality of Sabah’s future,” says Ali, “it became my job to change it. I could build the place where Sabah and others like her would achieve everything non-disabled people were entitled to.” Close family friends offered a favorable lease on a five-acre site, and the new house, designed by Ali, was built with materials and labor donated by contractors he works with. Daniel Winterbottom, a UW associate professor of landscape architecture, provided the master garden plan. Tavon Center is currently zoned to accommodate 12 clients, but the Vafaeezadahs are working to change this. “Watching our clients spend time together has been amazing,” says Therese, a nurse practitioner. “Each day at Tavon is filled with meaningful activities, and it is working exactly as we hoped. Our next step is to make it bigger, so we can serve the disabled community and as a result, the community at large, better.”
Shannon Messenger, ’88, is a Seattle-area freelance writer.