Cover Story
Two moments stand out as pivotal in Lindy Cleveland’s quest to provide faith-based services to individuals with developmental disabilities. The first came on the day she moved into campus at Samford University when she found her brother Jordan sitting sadly outside her dorm. She and Jordan shared an incredibly close bond as siblings, and she looked at her brother with a special sense of concern. Jordan, who has Down’s Syndrome and a pulmonary heart condition, told her: “I want to do this. I want to go to college. I want to go to games and wear a shirt with my school’s name on it.” The seed of an idea was planted as she asked herself the question, “Why doesn’t he get to do those things?”
The second moment came when Cleveland sat in a movie theater watching Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” with a group of special needs students as she approached her graduation from Samford. A line from the movie hit her like a ton of bricks. “I heard the line, ‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.’ I knew then that I had to do something.” She knew she could create some sort of program that would give Jordan a collegiate experience- and she knew that there could be potentially countless other special needs individuals and families that had only dreamed of that sort of program. She stepped out on faith, and today is the Founder and Executive Director of Unless U– a nonprofit that includes a main campus, a second campus for individuals with more extensive needs, and the Unless U Scoops ice cream shop. She lives in Birmingham with her husband Mitch (a special education teacher in the Vestavia Hills school system) and two sons Grady and Jordan Brooks (named for her brother). Through it all, Cleveland said, she has trusted God to direct her and the program’s steps.
The Need for Unless U and Post Place. According to Cleveland, the need for services for developmentally challenged individuals increases exponentially after high school. While around 90% of individuals have opportunities through high school, many of them lose them once they become adults and graduate from that system. Colleges and jobs are rarely an option for them and, Cleveland said, they may simply find themselves sitting at home with few possibilities ahead of them. Seeing her brother with that sense of incompletion and hopelessness in front of him touched her deeply and changed her plans. She founded Unless U (named after that motivational line from “The Lorax,” coupled with the “U” for a university) in 2014 after earning her degrees in human development and family life education. 
“We started with four adults in my parent’s house in August of 2014,” she remembered. “Our home church, Shades Mountain Baptist, offered us some space, and in November we started with 10 students.” She used the church three days a week, but enrollment quickly grew from 10 to 20 to 30 to 40, and she and her staff began praying about building a facility. Property across from Vestavia Hills Methodist Church became available to them, and Unless U relished the opportunity at the location. “Since we’re a day program, location matters to our families,” she explained. “We’re here, in the heart of the town. When we drew a circle that showed where the 60 families we served at the time were located, it was perfect for the location.” A capital campaign to raise $1.2 million was launched and in 2018 it was moved to $2 million. “The Lord provided what we needed, and we moved in debt-free,” Cleveland said.
They began growing their program, offering such services as different academic ability-level classes, electives, intramural sports, and other things you might find on a college campus. Soon after, however, Cleveland and her staff realized that another segment of the people they served needed more care and concern. The Unless U Post Place opened to work with individuals who have both behavioral and physical limitations. “I was convicted that we didn’t have a space for these students who need more care. They are even more marginalized within the special needs community,” she explains. A special room was built for that group of students and in June 2021, it welcomed five different families into the program; soon it added a second class with five more families. “I found out I was pregnant with my second son right before opening, and we had just one classroom,” Cleveland said. “We didn’t promote the space, but while I was at home my emails were just blowing up. People were so desperate for this service.” Ultimately, a second campus space was opened in a space left empty by an organization already serving developmentally challenged students. It was just five minutes from their main campus. “The Lord provided again for us because it was perfect,” she said. A director, Jennifer Greet, was hired and the facility opened in August 2022. It serves 24 students a day and represents 52 families. Three teachers and volunteers work so that students can get true one-on-one attention. “It’s an amazing program that provides life skills and social skills,” she said. “We’re just so pleased to offer this to our families.”
Watch this video to hear Cleveland explain how her faith leads her in every aspect of her life and how local churches have helped Unless U expand.
Building Community through Ice Cream. Unless U provides opportunities for the “whole person”- including the opportunity to work. “We serve students in our main campus academically, spiritually, and socially, and now we’re trying to save them vocationally. We want to serve the whole person,” Cleveland said, adding, “We want to create job training opportunities because we know how important that is. They want to work, but parents often are afraid about it because these individuals have been hurt by co-workers and the public in the past.” She stressed that “we need to make sure they’re being respected and treated well in the workplace.” The answer from Unless U was their Scoops ice cream shop, which opened next to their main campus in Vestavia Hills in 2021. Students who work at Scoops wear their shirts to school, walk to work, and go on their shifts. While there they learn such valuable skills as handling money, interacting with the public, and building a good work ethic. Cleveland said that the students who work there are true “ambassadors for those with disabilities,” and their presence creates a real-life learning lab for customers and the public. “Scoops is a perfect environment to engage our students with the community, and to teach how important it is to love everyone,” she said. “Come get ice cream, bring your family. It’s a great way to break down barriers between us.”
Image Bearers of Christ. Cleveland’s passion for working with people with developmental disabilities is rooted in her Christian faith, and she encourages all Christians to consider their attitudes, biases, and perspectives on the special needs community. “We need to remember that everyone is made in the image of Christ. We are image bearers, they are image bearers,” she said. “We want to celebrate and empower them as image bearers. I believe that might change society’s views of disabilities.”
Cleveland said that it’s important that people get to know others–not for their diagnosis, but for their personhood. “We need to get to know them as people first,” she said. “They have the same fears, hobbies, and likes as anyone. We need to know that they’re people too- just like us. Treat them with that understanding and respect.” Cleveland has led first with faith, as she ventured into every step of the Unless U journey. That, she said, has shown God’s faithfulness to her and has blessed her more than she could have ever imagined. “In loving the children God loves, that’s been the biggest blessing of my life,” she said. “They exemplify the qualities of our Lord and Savior.” By founding Unless U, she ultimately honors those children–including her brother Jordan, who inspired her work and is enthusiastically involved in the school. She’s able to see him every day- fulfilled and encouraged to live into his potential as one of God’s children.
-Cheryl Wray
