Closed April 10th!

EDS clients:

Enjoy the day off.

Pioneer is closed on April 10th.

Transportation Survey from DHS

Transportation Survey
3/24/2009

Transportation, or rather the lack of it, is one of the biggest barriers to employment brought up across the state.

Meeting the Challenge, Inc. received a grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and is conducting a survey designed to collect information from people with disabilities regarding their experiences with public transportation. All people with disabilities are invited to participate.

Please have individuals with developmental disabilities and their families/support workers complete this survey. The Il. Rural Transportation Assistance Center will also use the results of this survey to help guide and prioritize their work.

Information gathered will be used to determine what barriers still exist in public transportation for people with disabilities and will be used to create Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) technical assistance materials directed toward alleviating those barriers.

The survey is available on-line at: http://mtcinc.transit.sgizmo.com/.
It is estimated that it will take from 5 to 15 minutes to complete the survey. Anyone who does not have access to the internet but would like to participate in the survey can do so by calling Meeting the Challenge at: 1-800-864-4264 (select menu choice #2), Monday through Friday between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM. Individuals may take the survey by telephone and/or request a paper copy.

Responses to the survey will be collected through March 31, 2009.

Feel free to forward this e-mail to any individuals with a disability or to any organizations serving individuals with disabilities that you feel would be appropriate respondents.

Thank you for your participation and assistance!

“A Blueprint for System Redesign in Illinois”

McHenry County Task Force on Developmental
Disabilities Meeting

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 @ 10:00 am
Mental Health Board – Crystal Lake, IL
620 Dakota Street

Featuring Special Guest: Sheila T. Romano
Executive Director of the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities

Presenting on
“A Blueprint for System Redesign in Illinois”

Please RSVP
Cindy Sullivan at Options & Advocacy (815) 477-4720 or cindy.sullivan@opad.org
Or
Jason Clark at Pioneer Center jclark@pioneercenter.org


We need your help to fix Illinois' broken systemIllinois' system for people with developmental disabilities needs change. Currently, Illinois:
Has an estimated 200,000 individuals with developmental disabilities.
Institutionalizes more people than almost any other state in the union.
Ranks last (51 out of 51) in the % of people with a developmental disability living in a setting of 1-6 people.
16,000 Illinoisans with a developmental disability on the state's waiting list for supports and services.
The Blueprint will enable Illinois to:
Spend taxpayer dollars more efficiently.
Put the state on a path to leadership.
Help more people receive supports and services.
For more information, please visit: http://illinoisblueprint.org/

Richmond Burton Transition Garage Sale

Dear friends, family, and employers,

RB Transition is having a fundraiser this Friday April 3rd and you are invited.
We have tons of great stuff. The sale will be held at Richmond Burton High School room W114. We are open from 8:00am to 3:00pm. Enter through the “main” entrance, someone from Transition will be there to escort you to the sale. Hope you can come! All proceeds benefit the Transition program with daily living and vocational activities. Thanks for your support. Evelyn

Climate Change

Tomorrow night from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. the World Wildlife Fund is asking individuals, businesses, governments, and organizations from around the world to turn off their lights for one hour, Earth Hour, to make a global statement of concern about climate change.

Last year, more than 2.7 million Chicagoland residents came together to turn off their lights for Earth Hour. As the bright lights of Chicago dimmed, the city turned its attention towards the need for substantial, long-term action to raise awareness about energy efficiency and global climate change.

The Chicagoland region reported an electricity savings of 7 percent - the carbon emissions equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road for one hour or planting 158 acres of trees.

Please join the Chicagoland region do even better this year and turn off your lights tomorrow night.

Success Party April 2nd!!!

We are SUPER EXCITED to announce that Bret is graduating from EDS. We will be celebrating by having Pizza of course!

Please join us in Honoring BRET on April 2nd, at 12:00 in the EDS classroom.

Bring $5.00 for pizza, you don't get to eat for free!

WAY TO GO BRET!
We'll miss you! We are so proud! From: Your friends in EDS.

Big Feet

Pioneer has been making some new purchases in different exercise equipment. The most exciting is the Big Foam Feet. The feet can be used to replace any sort of stick or mallet game: Foot Croquet, Foot Golf, Foot Hockey, just for starters. An excellent aid for those with limited lower extremity movement. Other new arrivals: movement scars, beanbag set, soft-end barbells and wheelchair gym enabling device.

Winter Classes: HUGE SUCCESS!

In January, the clients had an opportnity to sign-up for winter session classes. The brochure for the Winter Courses were distributed in class. The clients had an opportunity to sign up for a Campus Class. Classes Offered: Yahoo!, Geography, Collage Calendar, Paul Kleee Collection Art Projects, Stained Glass Paintings, Express Yourself (Free style art), Photography, Music Appreciation, Women’s Group, Glamour Girls, Seniorcise, Health Class, Health and Wellness club, Snack Attack Training, Pop Machine Training, Coffee Talk, Cooking Class, & Warehouse Skills Training.

The Winter Classes will end in April, and then we will be onto the Spring Quarter! Keep an eye out for that brochure!

YAHOO!!!

It took us a little while to get the new folks set up, but now all the EDS clients once again have an email account. Most of the clients are signed up with YAHOO! We would like to encourage clients to email their staff, family and friends both at Pioneer and at home. Several of the clients stated that they would email more, if they only knew more addresses. We will assist with adding addresses to contact lists if you send them along with the clients! Thanks :)

SPRING BREAK!!! NO MCC

MCC is closed for Spring Break.

Therefore EDS will NOT be at MCC on March 25th and 27th.

But don't worry, classes will be running at PIONEER CENTRAL!

THANKS, Rachel

Book & Gift Fair

Book & Gift Fair
Thursday, April 2nd
10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Rooms A, B, and C
Pioneer West

Quality books and unique gifts at great savings.
Get an early start on Easter or other holiday gifts.

Attention Baseball Fans

Thanks to Terry and his email campaign, we are excited to announce that the Chicago White Sox Organization is giving EDS 20 free tickets to the 1:00 game on April 29th.

Now three of these tickets will be going to staff (Rachel, Britt and Jason), therefore 17 tickets are available to clients. In order to be fair to those in EDS, we’re going to put all the names of the clients who want to attend in a hat. The names will be drawn on March 24th and will be informed immediately with more information.

The group will be leaving Pioneer campus at 10:00 am and will drive out to Chicago. We will be stopping at the Oasis for lunch. Clients can bring a sack lunch or purchase something at one of the fast food restaurants (McDonalds, Subway, KFC, Taco Bell, and Panda Express). At the park, clients are responsible for their own food and souvenir money. We expect to return to Pioneer somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 pm. This might be a deal breaker for some, but we’re asking that clients have their own transportation home.

(One important note, we recommend those going NOT to wear anything CUBS. The Sox fans do not have good manners towards Cubs fans.)

Things have been busy

So much has been going on in EDS, it's difficult to even know where to start!

Because we have been so busy, I haven't been able to keep up with posts on this blog. I'm going to attempt to make up for it this week by adding posts about things that have happened during the past few weeks as well as what events we have planned for the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for your patience!
Rachel

Wed March 11th

EDS will be leaving MCC early on Wednesday the 11th. We will leave after lunch around 12:20.
(Britt has to go to OIG training at 1:00) Please plan accordingly if you get picked up at MCC.

THANKS!!

New Room at MCC for FRI March 6th

Friday March 6th EDS will re-locate for friday only to

room A113.
Next week we will have class in the regular room E102.