About Us

Tri-City CARES, Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that is dedicated to providing quality support and services to people with intellectual disabilities. Individuals live in Stanley, New Town, and Tioga. Tri-City strives to provide support and services that are least restrictive, personal, and age appropriate to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Individuals engage in meaningful work based on their individual interests and skills. Habilitation, training, and programs are implemented in order to maximize independence, create a normalizing atmosphere, and promote community integration. Tri-City CARES is licensed through the North Dakota Department of Human Services and is accredited nationally by the Council on Quality and Leadership.

Tri-City Cares History

The dream of building a group home in Stanley was born in the fall of 1974 in the Bakery coffee shop in Stanley where Mae Hagen, Edra Hanson and Bonnie Erickson met for coffee after we dropped off our developmentally disabled children at the elementary school for special education classes. Our discussion almost always led to our children and the hopes and dreams we had for them, none of which included an institutional setting. We just knew a group home was the answer, especially in a small town setting, where they could become part of a community and not lost in it as we felt they would be in a larger town. Several avenues were investigated such as: checking with an attorney and even eyeing a parcel of land but money was just not available at that time. Later, in 1982, Judge Van Sickle's court order changed all of that when he ordered North Dakota to depopulate our institutions.

Carl and Dusty Rogstad became involved as they had a developmentally disabled child attending Special Education classes also, and several meetings took place in the community and eventually with officials from Bismarck. We discovered that we needed not only one but three group homes and a training center to make our project financially feasible. Stanley could not support three group homes so the cities of New Town and Tioga were added. Mainly because of interest shown in the project by Mae Hagen and Bill Demaree in New Town and Charles Barton in Tioga and because the distance to these towns would mean a ride of not much more than 30 minutes for the clients to come to the training center each working day (a requirement of the State). If you look at a North Dakota map, you will find that the three cities form a triangle, hence, the name Tri-City CARES. After many meetings, Tri-City was finally incorporated April 3rd, 1983.

A nine person board was set up with three members representing each town. The original members were: from Stanley - Gary Nelson, Lila Thorlakson, and Bonnie Erickson; from New Town - Mae Hagen, Bill Demarre, and Glenda Goodbird; and from Tioga - Charles Barton, Tim Coughlin, and Allen Monson. Robert Holte agreed to act as our attorney.

Our next move was to hire Yvonne Hanzel, a consultant from Jamestown, who took us through the maze of paperwork that needed to be filled out for the State. We were finally getting somewhere! We selected Mr. Edmond Leonard from Minot to be our architect, found four building sites and with Gary Nelson's help found three local banks that would back us and loan us one-fourth of the $1,030,000 that we needed to build our facilities. All of this was done contingent on our loan from the Bank of North Dakota (our most frequently used words in those days were "contingent upon"). In August 1984, our loan from the Bank of North Dakota came through for $772,500.00 and finally papers were signed with Scandia Bank of Stanley, Lakeside Bank of New Town, and Tioga State Bank of Tioga for the remaining $275,500.00. The feeling of most board members about the time was "we have really got our necks stuck way out there, haven't we?"

The day finally came when we held the contractors bid opening on September 12th, 1984. The contracts were awarded to Monroe Contractors from Rolla for the general contract, Johnson Plumbing of Rolette for the mechanical, and Triangle Electric from Williston for the electrical contact. The building was to start as soon as possible. What a good feeling to see the buildings going up at last.

Despite bad winter weather, our training center building and Stanley Group Home were nearly finished in February, 1985 and our first Executive Director, John Schiermeister of Dickinson, was hired.

Our first client arrived on April 29, 1985 at the Stanley Group Home, which had just been completed. The Tioga Group Home and New Town Group Homes were completed and they received their first client on July 2, 1985. As you can see, dreams do come true.