Day 6

It's Thursday May 26, 2016. It was a different kind of morning, a cloudy, sleeping in a little later kind of morning.  We took a 30 min drive to Hollis Adams, which is located in a different part of Indianapolis with beautiful houses. Hollis Adams is held in the lower level of Hope Covenant Church.  Kim greeted us at the door and gave us a brief introduction of the program. Kim was very enthusiastic as she was describing some of the participants. As we walked down to the lower level, the participants started to walk towards us. I was very surprised to spot some familiar faces who were from OTB.  The participants chose their "buddies." This sweet gentleman named Adam chose me. Adam was so friendly and interactive; he told me he lives with roommates and his dog. I was pleased to know he was very independent. Adam and I did many different activities throughout the day. I would say our favorite was music time. Adam sure is a dancer, athletic and a tight hugger.

For part of our day, we went with some Hollis Adams participants to take part in a kickball game with students at a nearby Catholic grade school. Each Hollis Adams participant was matched up with one grade school student who would run with them from base to base, etc. The school has a program called Everybody Counts in which students in different grades learn about different social issues and then serve with that community. So, the students participating in the kickball game were the ones who have been learning about disabilities! The rest of the school was on the side watching and cheering everyone on. It was really cool to see how encouraging the children were towards the participants with disabilities. During reflection, we discussed how this is a wonderful program and that it probably greatly impacts how those children view people with differing abilities.

It was also really interesting to get to see a different approach to day programs for adults with special needs today! Both organizations seek to empower their participants and provide meaningful days for them, but the way the programs run is different. I feel that it's nearly impossible for what we see as meaningful or successful for the community members to not be influenced by what our society views as success and meaning. We also talked about this in reflection and decided that all we can do is reflect on our perspectives and try to view things from other perspectives.

- Melissa & Jessi