Shovels hit dirt in Piedmont this week as the Center of Family Love broke ground on its new BravEra Life Center, a $30 million campus meant to give Oklahomans with intellectual disabilities and neurodiversity a path toward careers, independence and community life. The faith-based nonprofit, which has spent more than four decades serving the state's intellectual and developmental-disabilities community, held the ceremonial groundbreaking on Wednesday, October 21.
The project has been seven years in the making, according to Shawn Dillon, president and CEO of the Center of Family Love, who made the comments as reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The organization says it has already raised $25 million toward the project, with the Knights of Columbus contributing a major share of the funding, and it still needs to raise another $5 million to finish the job, per the same account. Construction is expected to begin in November, with a target completion of fall 2028, Dillon said.
Described by The Oklahoman as a hub for education, life skills, career training and development for people with intellectual disabilities and neurodiversity, the BravEra Life Center is designed to prepare students and adults for meaningful employment and greater independence, Dillon said. The Center of Family Love is a faith-based nonprofit that has long focused on helping individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism, and Dillon said the organization's mission is to highlight people's abilities and build on their talents.
What's Being Built on the Piedmont Campus
Plans call for a 30,000-square-foot career training center with classrooms, workforce-development spaces and a culinary-arts training kitchen, according to KFOR. The campus will also include a community event center, agricultural learning facilities and health and wellness amenities, with a 47,000-square-foot greenhouse and a regenerative-agriculture barn rounding out the grounds, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City reports.
Once open, BravEra will offer a day program for up to 300 people from the wider community, Dillon said, serving both adults living at home and Center of Family Love residents. That program is expected to include high school students from 14 school districts. KFOR reports the center is expected to serve an additional 200 individuals with special needs annually, while earlier reporting from The Journal Record described the planned center as a $40 million project that could eventually serve up to 500 people with special needs each year — figures that current coverage has not reconciled with the newer $30 million estimate announced at the groundbreaking.
Decades of Work Behind the New Campus
The Center of Family Love, now in its 45th year, already runs a campus in Okarche that serves more than 130 people with intellectual and physical disabilities. The organization says it has helped individuals with disabilities find employment and careers they enjoy, with people it serves currently making air filters and floral arrangements and growing plants for consumption.
That track record fits into a broader national picture. Nationally, just 16% of people who received services from their state intellectual and developmental-disabilities agency were employed in an integrated community job in 2024, according to ThinkWork. Those in individual competitive integrated jobs worked an average of 28.07 hours per week and earned an average of $14.38 an hour that year, the same data shows. ThinkWork also reports that in 2023, 40% of people with a cognitive disability had jobs, compared with 77% of people without a disability.
Oklahoma's own disability-services philosophy holds that all citizens, including those with significant disabilities, are capable of employment and full participation, according to Oklahoma Human Services. The state agency also notes that home- and community-based service settings are meant to support full access to the broader community, including opportunities to seek competitive, integrated employment. BravEra's backers are betting that a dedicated campus — with its own kitchen, greenhouse and barn — can turn that philosophy into hands-on training close to home.
