Summer is coming to an end and for the Clubhouse that means harvest time in our beautiful garden! We have tons of tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, egg-plants, and pumpkins. We will donate a good portion of our harvest to the Food for Thought Project. Our members also get to take home some of the harvest and we also use it in our daily lunches that we make together. The Clubhouse has also met with the Casper Community Greenhouse Project and we are now on their list to create walkways around the greenhouse and garden boxes to make it more handicap accessible for our members.
We have a couple of members currently working towards employment goals and the Clubhouse staff are hard at work to help them achieve these goals. Both of these members are working towards independent employment and needed some initial support to kickstart resumes and find job applications online. While we had great expectations to implement our transitional employment program by this November, I have come to understand that the implementation of this program will require the Clubhouse to hire additional staff. So in the meantime the Clubhouse will continue to offer employment support by connecting people to resources and helping with the initial job search process as well as resume building. We are currently building a relationship with the Department of Vocational Rehab to “braid” services within each of our organizations to better serve those seeking employment.
Out in the community this month we had the opportunity to volunteer with the Special Olympics during their bowling event, the members had a lot of fun with this. The Clubhouse was also at the United Ways Kickoff event. Members from the Clubhouse enjoyed listening to live music and interacting with our community. Members also had the opportunity to see Top Gun at the movie theater this month. Everyone is really enjoying the increase in activities offered at the Clubhouse.
Lastly, the Clubhouse members will be partnering with Occupational Therapy students from the University of North Dakota these next several months. The students are learning about how to build therapeutic relationships and occupational profiles with the members. The members who have signed up are excited to be able to partner with somebody outside of the Clubhouse and are looking forward to the partnerships.
As always, thank you for supporting Iris Clubhouse.
With Gratitude,
Rebecca Reeves, OTD, Executive Director