Beverly Farm Foundation announces five new board members
Crystal Officer, CEO of Beverly Farm Foundation, has announced the addition of five new members to the Beverly Farm Foundation Board of Directors, including two local women, one from Edwardsville and the other from Alton.
“I am thrilled to announce that we have five new members joining the Beverly Farm Foundation Board of Directors,” said Officer. “Adding their talents and insights will only strengthen our board and aid in the continuing pursuit of our mission, providing loving, caring homes for adults with developmental disabilities.”
Joining the Beverly Farm Foundation Board are Bonni Burns-Schuette of Edwardsville; Bianca Jackson of Alton; Emily Miller Friend of Short Hills, N.J.; Mark Softy of Pinehurst, N.C.; and Charlene Spiceland of Framingham, Mass.
Bonni Burns-Schuette is president and CEO of BAM Marketing Agency, which she founded in 2008 and is based in downtown St. Louis.
Bianca Jackson is chief of staff for the City of Alton, Ill. Early in her career, Bianca worked as a qualified intellectual disability professional (QIDP) at Beverly Farm Foundation.
Emily Miller Friend has an extensive career in marketing and sales having held management positions at advertising agencies, Saatchi & Saatchi and Wells, Rich, Greene Inc., and apparel company, Liz Claiborne, Inc.
Mark Softy is a retired partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLP.
Charlene Spiceland, Ph.D., is a retired associate professor from Simmons University in Massachusetts.
Beverly Farm was founded in 1897 by Dr. William H.C. Smith and his wife, Elizabeth, to establish a caring home that included socialization, proper medical care, healthy diet, physical exercise, education, recreation and meaningful work for people living with developmental disabilities.
Today it is a planned community that looks and feels like a neighborhood. There are homes, a recreation center with a pool, an equestrian center, medical services, therapies, and much more. Just under 300 individuals who live with intellectual or developmental disabilities currently call Beverly Farm home.
The mission of Beverly Farm is to provide a loving, caring home for adults with developmental disabilities, providing each individual with physical and emotional security and a dignified quality of life, with opportunities and challenges, within each individual’s functional capabilities.
This story also appears in the November 2023 print edition of the Illinois Business Journal.
