Honoring the Past. Empowering the Future.
In 2025, the UMAR Legacy Fund launched as a tribute to the extraordinary history and impact of UMAR in shaping inclusive, empowering services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities across Western North Carolina.
This fund celebrates the spirit of UMAR by sustaining the group homes, creative arts centers and community-based programs that were born from its vision and founded under the UMAR banner. These legacy programs continue to be a source of joy, independence and connection for so many and now, through the UMAR Legacy Fund, you can help ensure they thrive for generations to come.
Gifts to the fund will support the ongoing operations of these programs, with the flexibility for you to direct your contributions to the group homes, arts centers and/or community-based services that matter most to you. Whether through annual giving or a legacy gift in your estate plans, you can support the UMAR Legacy Fund, which supports these sites as a whole, or designate your contribution(s) to specific homes or programs that hold personal meaning.
Your generosity and continued support ensure these cherished services will flourish for years to come. Together, we will preserve UMAR’s legacy while building a future filled with opportunity, creativity and care.
Giving to the UMAR Legacy Fund
Your generous gift to the UMAR Legacy Fund or a specific UMAR legacy home or program, provide compassionate support for people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Your support ensures that residential group homes and apartments, innovative arts-based day program support as well as supported employment and vocational resources are available for the individuals and families who need them most.
Charitable contributions are increasingly critical as state and federal funding cuts diminish funding available for the services we provided to meet the needs of our participants.
Donations designated to UMAR programs and services are always directed according to the donor’s wishes. If you have questions about giving to UMAR programs, please contact Jodie Gisser, Director of Philanthropy at [email protected].
Mailing a gift?
Make your payment to Monarch and note the UMAR Legacy Fund or program or site (if any) you wish to donate to in the check’s memo line and mail to:
Monarch
Attn: Philanthropy Department
350 Pee Dee Avenue, Suite 101
Albemarle, NC 28001
Information and Application for Long-Term Services
Referrals and placements to Monarch’s Long-Term Services and Supports Referral Team. Please click here to see group home locations in your area and use the links below for information and application for services.
View Current Residential Vacancies
Request Information on Long-Term Services and Supports
Apply for Long-Term Services and Supports
UMAR’s History
In the early 1980’s a group of parents and concerned clergy members from the United Methodist Church came together in Winston-Salem to form a task force to address the needs of “persons with handicapped needs.” Recognizing that there were insufficient residential programs to help aging parents and foster the independence of young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD), these pioneers forged partnerships, advocated, and secured funding to start UMAR.
In 2023, UMAR joined Monarch, a leading statewide provider of long-term services and supports for people with I/DD and the programs and services created under the UMAR banner continue changing lives every day.
Questions?
If you have questions about UMAR’s legacy of service or Monarch’s current programs and services, please email [email protected] or call (866) 272-7826 for information.