Program for disabled gets $25,000 grant

A foundation honoring a firefighter who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in lower Manhattan has donated $25,000 to a Smithtown-based program for disabled children and adults.

Developmental Disabilities Institute said the donation will be used for a $8.5-million project to renovate a school building on its 14-acre campus on Little Plains Road in Greenlawn, and construct housing there for 24 Long Island children who live in out-of-state facilities.

“Parents have had to send their children out of state because there were no residential beds [on Long Island] for their kids,” said Dan Rowland, director of development for the institute, known as DDI.

The donation came from the Jack Fanning Memorial Foundation. Fanning, 54, of West Hempstead, was a New York City Fire Department battalion chief last seen in the World Trade Center’s south tower. He had two sons with autism.

DDI serves almost 1,000 children and adults with autism and runs more than 30 residential, educational and vocational programs in Nassau and Suffolk counties.