On a Sunday morning in Farmingdale, Long Island, 68-year-old Howard Sturm laces up his shoes and heads to his bowling league, a routine he’s kept for more than 40 years. It’s a life built on choice and community.

But his story begins in a very different place.

At just 10 years old, after time in foster care, he was placed in the now-closed Wassaic State School, where he lived from 1968 to 1976.

“It was not a good place,” Sturm said. “I would never want to go back there.”