MOCEANS Center for Independent Living, Inc, is a consumer-driven, consumer-controlled organization serving people with disabilities, their families, friends and allies in the community. At MOCEANS we offer programs, skills, connections and guidance that help people who are living with disability choose how they live, work, and participate in the life of their community.

• Originally formed as a project of the Consumer Advisory Council on the Disabled, (CACOD, Inc), which provide independent living services to people with disabilities throughout the state of New Jersey. CACOD existed from 1979 and operated for 12 years.
   

• In 1988 CACOD, Inc. secured permanent funding from the New Jersey Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services, (NJDVRS), to establish an independent living center. The following year, the funding was used to establish Monmouth-Ocean Independent Living Center, Inc.
   

• After several years of operation, Monmouth-Ocean ILC's name was shortened to MOCEANS ILC which is an incorporation of both Monmouth and Ocean counties, the center’s catchment areas.
   

• MOCEANS ILC continued to diversify its funding and services by applying for and receiving various state and county contracts and grants in areas of personal assistant services, recreation, system change and assistive technology.
   

• In the summer of 1995, NJDVRS in compliance with Title VII of the Rehabilitation Act of 1992, mandated that CACOD, Inc. and MOCEANS ILC separate and that the center become its own free-standing, non-profit center for independent living.
   

• By spring of 1996, through the hard work of consumers and the support of CACOD, Inc. Board of Directors, NJDVRS, and the New Jersey Statewide Independent Living Council, (NJSILC), MOCEANS ILC was officially established as center for independent living.
   

• At the annual meeting in the spring of 1996, as a result of priorities identified in the strategic planning process implemented by the Board of Directors, the membership voted to change the organization’s name from MOCEANS Independent Living Center, Inc. to MOCEANS Center for Independent Living, Inc.
   

• This decision was a result of the need for the organization to identify itself primarily as a Center for Independent Living and to promote itself accordingly. A formal name change was approved by the State of New Jersey in October of the same year.
   

• In April of 1996, MOCEANS CIL was incorporated and in April 1997, MOCEANS received its 501(c)3 nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service.

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Over the next two years, all of CACOD, Inc. contracts, grants and all other fiscal responsibilities were successfully transferred to MOCEANS CIL without any interruption of services to any consumer.

MOCEANS’ outreach into the community is well established, working with a myriad of agencies, businesses, organizations and schools to further its mission and opportunities for people with disabilities in the communities throughout Monmouth and Ocean Counties.