Carolyn Langer
December 24, 2020
Disabilities nonprofit sees major potential in Framingham site
Photo | Grant Welker
The former Marian High School in Framingham
By Grant Welker
Options exist for educating students with disabilities, and some day programs for adults pick up where schools leave off. But Dr. Carolyn Langer, who has a son in his 20s with autism, has long known that there's potential for more programs to help provide developmental, social and other services.
"My philosophy is that every moment should be a teachable moment," Langer said.
Langer, the chief medical officer and a senior vice president at the Worcester insurer Fallon Health, now has the opportunity to create such a place. Her nonprofit, Invictus Forever, has paid $2.6 million to buy the former Marian High School in Framingham and has plans to turn it into a place where adults and children with a wide range of disabilities including autism and cerebral palsy can spend time when they're not at school or an adult day program, including on evenings and weekends. Langer expects to draw from a potentially wide geographic area.
"There's not really anything like this elsewhere in the state," she said.
Invictus Forever won't be moving into the 98,000-square-foot former school particularly soon. Plans are still in early stages for renovating the place for its new use, including handicapped accessibility. In the meantime, the nonprofit plans to hold programming next summer — such plans for this year were thrown off by the coronavirus pandemic — at other locations in Framingham.
Eventually, the new center is expected to take advantage of its location about two blocks from MetroWest Medical Center's Framingham Union Hospital for potential volunteer opportunities for clients. It could also have an on-site kitchen and cafe where clients can learn professional and social skills and help serve meals to the public.
Langer has done similar work before. She founded what she says is the first Cub Scout pack in Massachusetts for boys with special needs in 2002. That work, which lasted 15 years, showed the benefit of giving purpose and accomplishment to a group of boys who otherwise might not be a good fit for a typical pack.
Langer is hoping to build off that success. She's also been motivated by finding that too few opportunities exist for adults with special needs, particularly ones that can help develop self-sufficiency. A capital campaign is expected to get underway to help renovate the former Marian High School and help Invictus Forever get off the ground.
"It's a great location," she said of the former school on Union Avenue, which closed two years ago. "I couldn't have dreamed of a better site for this initiative."
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