So Much Inspiration in a Chevy Impala

You may be thinking what I’m thinking when you spot a classic cruising down the street; in this case a well-cared-for 1964 Chevy Impala SS. “Nice ride” might quietly leave my lips. Inspiration comes in so many forms. Our Imagine! Foundation is good example; this year already surpassing goals for fund-raising and our staff surpassing their own financial contribution goals in Transcend $10,000. It doesn’t end there however. A person whom I find inspiring, Bob Charles the founding Board member of our Imagine! Foundation, sent me a this link with a note about inspiration and a demonstration of what can be done with a whole lot of determination.

I promised I would share this classic with our folks at Imagine!. This clip has it all; a good deal of adaptive technology, a lot of people wondering what Richie can do, a classic Chevy, and a truly inspiring story.

Next time you see a ’64 Chevy Impala cruising the streets, see if something else doesn’t quietly leave your lips.
Then again, what do I know?

Good News Friday!

We have some good Knights in our community.

The Knights of Columbus continue to support Imagine!’s Dayspring department's Community Calendar Activities, which allow Dayspring therapists to provide therapies to children and their families in a community setting.

Here are some donations that local councils of the Knights of Columbus have made to Imagine! in the past few weeks, and the total amount the Knights’ Councils have donated to Imagine! over the past ten-plus years. These generous donations come from funds raised by the Knights of Columbus Annual Tootsie Roll Drive.

The Longmont Knights of Columbus Councils 1313 and 14898 made a donation of $925, bringing their total amount donated to Imagine! to $23,452.84. Pictured above from the left are: Matt Eldred, Executive Director of TLC Learning Center (which also received $925), James W. Rawlings, Jr., Grand Knight of Council 1313, and Julie Hartman, Director of Dayspring.

The Boulder Knights of Columbus Council 1183 made a donation of $1,000, bringing the total amount donated to Imagine! to $15,912.23. Pictured above is Boulder Knight Dick Bryant presenting a check to Dayspring Director Julie Hartman.

The Lafayette Knights of Columbus Council 5237 made a donation of $1,384.50 to Imagine!, bringing the total amount donated to Imagine! to $11,637.50. Pictured above from the left are Hiram Wolgemuth, Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus Council 5237, Fred Hobbs, Imagine!’s Director of Public Relations, and Knight Don Jung.

The Louisville Knights of Columbus Council 11851 made a donation of $251.17, bringing their total donated to Imagine! to $485.17.

Also, the Boulder Father Charles Forsythe Council 14877 has given donations to Imagine! in the past totaling $1,101.89.

The total amount donated to Imagine! over the years from local Knights of Columbus Councils is now $50,976.71.

Thanks to all of the churches and stores throughout Boulder County that allowed these Knights of Columbus Councils to conduct their fall 2013 Tootsie Roll Drives at their locations.

Labor Source 30 for 30 - Oskar Blues Brewery

Labor Source, the supported employment division of Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source department, is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year.

To honor this important milestone, each week I am publicly thanking and recognizing Labor Source’s many local business partners.

Supported employment offers people who have a disability the opportunity to develop vital job skills and become active participants in their communities. The benefits extend far beyond helping individuals served by Imagine!, however. Businesses using our services are able to reduce recruitment and training expenses as they benefit from a diversified employee pool. Partnering with CORE/Labor Source is a “win-win” situation that is beneficial all around.

We are very grateful to our business partners who have demonstrated their commitment to Imagine!’s mission by employing CORE/Labor Source participants.

Today’s Labor Source 30 for 30 partner highlight: Oskar Blues Brewery.

Oskar Blues Restaurant was founded by Dick Dale Katechis in Lyons, Colorado in 1997. Two years later, they began brewing beer in the basement of the restaurant. Their product is distributed exclusively in cans or resealable aluminum containers. They are the largest craft brewery (by volume) in the U.S. to eschew glass bottles. In 2011, they produced and canned 59,000 barrels of beer. In 2013, they employed over 275 people and distributed to 32 states. The company was ranked Colorado's second largest craft brewery and the 27th largest in the U.S. in 2012.

Over the past year, Oskar Blues has employed 17 CORE/Labor Source participants at various times. They have been employing individuals served by Imagine! since 2008.

Thanks to everyone at Oskar Blues for their commitment to our community and for providing employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

The Wrong Side of Trust

Sometimes we can be on the wrong side of trust.

Can't see the video? Click here.

In Colorado’s system of funding and serving individuals with one or more intellectual disabilities, we are moving toward the wrong side of trust, and I fear we might fall the wrong way.

Allow me to elaborate.

There is one side in our system advocating for more choice and for decision making at the closest level to the individual with the disability as possible. At that level, decision making is very personal and personalized. One size does not fit all, and there must be a certain level of trust that those making the decisions, the people closest to the decision, are capable of making decisions that will allow the individual thrive.

On the other side, there are those advocating moving decision making further away from the individual. At that level, decision making is not personal, rather it embraces “sameness” – a one size fits all approach. The more you centralize control, the more sameness you get. Think of where we have seen this before: mill housing, school uniforms, food lines . . . use your imagination.

The problem with that second approach is self evident. Last year, Imagine! served almost 2,600 individuals with intellectual disabilities. That is 2,600 different ways the disabilities manifested themselves, 2,600 different people of different ages with different skill levels, and most importantly, 2,600 different personalities and different ways they’d like to live their lives.

I’m not talking about access to resources; I’m talking about how we use those resources. Choice in our system cannot be sacrificed for sameness. That should never be our goal. None of us is the same. We aren’t all equal. Some people need more assistance than others. And the forms of that needed assistance can take many shapes. That doesn’t strike me as a difficult thing to understand.

I said it last week and I will say it again today. Decision making in our system can’t be based on politics, convenience, or to lessen supposed risk. We are talking about services for people who deserve to, and have the right to, live fulfilling lives of meaning in their homes and their communities. To make that happen, we need not be the same. We need to recognize and react to the individuality inherent in every person we serve. Sameness cannot be a goal.

We need decision making to take place as close to the individual as possible.

Then again, what do I know?

Good News Friday!

Here’s a fun story for Friday.

Earlier this week, Imagine! was so fortunate to have some volunteers from a University of Minnesota chapter of Students Today, Leaders Forever to help out with spreading mulch at Imagine!’s two office buildings.

The students are on their spring break this week, and are traveling around the country in a bus on a “Pay It Forward Tour,” engaging in volunteer activities wherever they find them.

I think this is such a cool thing to do, and I’m grateful that Imagine! was one of the beneficiaries of some their good deeds.

Thanks so much (or mulch!).

Labor Source 30 for 30 - Celestial Seasonings

Labor Source, the supported employment division of Imagine!’s CORE/Labor Source department, is celebrating its 30th Anniversary this year.

To celebrate this important milestone, each week I am publicly thanking and recognizing Labor Source’s many local business partners.

Supported employment offers people who have a disability the opportunity to develop vital job skills and become active participants in their communities. The benefits extend far beyond helping our clients, however. Businesses using our services are able to reduce recruitment and training expenses as they benefit from a diversified employee pool. Partnering with CORE/Labor Source is a “win-win” situation that is beneficial all around.

We are very grateful to our business partners who have demonstrated their commitment to Imagine!’s mission by employing CORE/Labor Source participants.

Today’s Labor Source 30 for 30 partner highlight: Celestial Seasonings.

In 1969, a group of passionate young entrepreneurs founded Celestial Seasonings upon the belief that their flavorful, all-natural herbal teas could help people live healthier lives. They harvested fresh herbs from the Rocky Mountains by hand, and then dried, blended and packaged them in hand-sewn muslin bags to be sold at local health food stores. By staying committed to their vision, the founders of Celestial Seasonings turned their cottage industry into an almost overnight success. Today, Celestial Seasonings is one of the largest specialty tea manufacturers in North America. They serve more than 1.6 billion cups of tea every year, and source more than 100 different ingredients from over 35 countries to create delicious, all-natural herbal, green, red, white, chai and wellness teas. But most importantly, they're still about people and passion.

Over the past year, Celestial Seasonings has employed 20 CORE/Labor Source participants at various times. The CLS crew runs the Kombucha bottling line and also packages Kombucha energy shots. Pictured below is Bell, who is keeping a steady supply of boxes coming to others on the crew to fill with bottles of Kombucha.

 Thanks to everyone at Celestial Seasonings for their commitment to our community and for providing employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Up Close and Personal

People love disaster stories. Maybe it is just because they like to hear the names “Jack” and “Rose” over and over again?

Can't see the video? Click here.

Actually, I was listening to a Harvard Business Review podcast recently which offered a different insight as to why people like disaster stories: during disasters, rules, regulations, legalities, and politics make very little difference when on the spot decisions are made.

Instead, other, more immediate factors take precedence. And as Andrew O’Connell points out in the podcast, when we watch disaster movies or read books about disasters, we may well find ourselves wondering how our own carefully constructed but mostly untested moral reasoning would hold up in a catastrophic situation. Will our behavior be guided by selflessness, self-interest, or something else?

Even if we don’t know how we might react, it is clear that during disasters, immediate and crucial decisions get made at the fundamental level. The further away the decision-making process gets, the more difficult it can be to determine who really needs assistance, and what sort of assistance is needed.

There is a parallel here to how decisions are being made in Colorado’s system of funding and serving individuals with intellectual disabilities. Increasingly, decisions on how this system should be organized and services are delivered are being made by people who are far away from the individuals who need assistance. This can lead to a lack of awareness of the real issues that need to be addressed, and may result in a system designed to meet the needs of the ones making the rules and regulations instead of the end users – the people getting the services. We are running a real risk of creating a system that doesn’t really offer opportunities for our citizens with developmental disabilities to engage in the community in meaningful ways.

Now, I’m not saying that we want to make decisions regarding the future of our system (and therefore, the people we serve) using exactly the same kind of methods one would use in a disaster. But I do think we can learn something from the idea that the closer we are to the fundamental level, the level of the individual, the more likely we are to make our decisions based on “higher issues” like the needs and desires of the individuals, rather than “lower issues” like politics or convenience. If we can’t learn that lesson, we risk creating a real disaster, one that could have negative ramifications for those we serve for years to come.

Then again, what do I know?