ARVADA - Alice Kitt became an advocate for others in need when no one would stick up for her son.

Alan Darland, now 42, has Down syndrome.

Shortly after Alan was born, a doctor told Kitt "to put him in an institution - several times," she said. "I said I'd never put him in an institution. I said I'd take my child home. And I took my son home."

She never again saw the doctor who recommended putting her child away from the world. But she let him know a thing or two.

"I wrote him a six-page letter telling him how much Alan meant to us," she said.

Later, when Alan was a toddler - 3 or 4 - his older sister was attending public school.

"He couldn't go to school," Kitt said. "We were paying taxes, and he couldn't go to school. That made me mad. And that's when I got involved."

Kitt sought organizations for support and help. She found one. She became involved in the Association for Retarded Citizens, and stayed with it for 25 years.

During that time, she lobbied state legislatures and Congress on behalf of people with disabilities.

In 1985, she helped found the nonprofit Guardianship Alliance for Colorado, which helps people through the legal system to become guardians.

"People with developmental disabilities have rights," Kitt said. "If their parents wanted to participate in the process, they had to go to court to be appointed a guardian. There wasn't one place for people to go to find out about guardianship without going to a lawyer and paying high fees."

She has since expanded Guardianship Alliance to include adults, seniors and people with brain injuries and mental illness.

As she explained, her organization is there to help people with "most any kind of injury or illness that causes a person to be incapacitated."

Along the way, she also helped found another nonprofit, Personal Affordable Living.

"We own 11 apartments," she said. "We only rent them to developmentally disabled adults who can live fairly independently."

She does her business out of a basement office in her home.

It's good she can stay close to home because she is undergoing chemotherapy - again - for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

"I'm not feeling terribly good," she said Tuesday. "But I'm not feeling too bad."

Kitt is a Colorado native. She moved a lot when she was younger - Meeker to Minturn to Colorado Springs to Albuquerque. She moved back to the Front Range for good in 1967.

Through it all, she never gave up on Alan, and he has achieved his own measure of success. He's living in one of the Personal Affordable Living apartments.

"He was selected as poster child for United Way in 1987," she said. "He became an Eagle Scout."

massarog@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5271