Learn more about our founders.
The founders and owners of Dawn to Dusk have personal stories that have drawn them to serve adults with Developmental Disabilities. A few years after his father’s death in August 2011, Sesh’s mother started to experience cognitive decline. At the time, his mother used to live with and support his sister, who has schizophrenia and her daughter (his niece), who has learning disabilities. In mid-2016, Sesh’s mom was diagnosed with Dementia and Sesh and his wife, Anandi, who is also the co-founder and owner of Dawn to Dusk, decided to bring her home to live with them and take care of her. Left with no family member to care for his sister and niece and no other viable option, Sesh had to make the hard decision to institutionalize them.
Sesh and Anandi see his mother’s struggle with the disease on a day to day basis. Sesh’s mother attends an Adult Day Care program close to home and Sesh and Anandi see the benefit of the program, although they wish that the facility provided specialized program for people like his his mother rather than a one size fits all approach. Sesh’s mother is also pre-diabetic and has high cholesterol. Due to her Dementia, she doesn’t remember what she eats at the facility and Sesh and Anandi wish that the staff were more communicative with them. With the advent of technology, it shouldn’t be too difficult to effectively communicate the day-to-day wellbeing of the clients to their caregivers.
Meanwhile in early-2017, Sesh’s niece was diagnosed with childhood schizophrenia. Thinking outside the box, Sesh and his siblings decided to try and integrate them with the general population while providing adequate support in the form of a day care and vocational training for his sister and special school, speech and occupational therapies and activities for his niece. Additionally, they also hired a live-in caregiver who can provide the much needed adult supervision and other support including providing meals and help with activities of daily living as needed. Since then, Sesh and his siblings have seen steady improvements, although not without challenges, with both. They are seeing the benefits of community integration and non-institutionalization in first hand.
These personal experiences have left Sesh and Anandi with a deep sense of compassion and a passion to provide programs and services that can lead to quality of life improvements and a wellbeing for both the program participants as well as their caregivers. Dawn to Dusk was thus born.