SPECIAL OLYMPICS

 

Athletes from Human Support Services participated in the Region 12 Special Olympics meet held Saturday, April 26 at SIU-E.  Many returned with first place (seven winners), second place (ten winners) and third place (six winners) medals and all 24 returned with participation medals.  Those placing first have the opportunity to advance to the Summer Games held June 13 to 15.  Summer Games is Special Olympics Illinois premiere sports competition with more than 4,000 athletes and Unified Partners competing in six different sports, along with 1,600 coaches, 2,500 volunteers and 3,300 family members.  The Summer Games are held at Illinois State University in Normal and the Illinois Wesleyan University campus in Bloomington.  A variety of activities are provided for the participants in addition to the sports competitions.

 

GROW COMING TO WATERLOO

GROW, an international organization is coming to Waterloo!  GROW was founded in Australia in 1957 by people with mental illnesses for people with mental illnesses with the focus to reach out into the community to offer support for everyone.   Meetings and social activities are planned by the members.  Meetings are held weekly and will start on Wednesday, May 7 at Human Support Services from 12 noon to 2pm.  Sharon Pochek, the area’s fieldworker will be present to help with the onset.  Please, come and join this wonderful organization.  It’s FREE and everyone is welcome.  For questions, contact Dawn Garner at 939-5716.

HSS GETS NEW VEHICLES

As the Hecker group homes nears completion we recently added some new vehicles to the HSS fleet.  These three brand-new Dodge mini-vans were just purchased at significant savings through a group purchasing program operated by the State of Illinois.  Instead of purchasing used vans, the great savings we were able to receive through this purchasing group purchasing program allowed us to buy new vehicles with full warrantees.  One of the new vans will go to the Hecker group homes, one will replace an old van at our Bradford site and the third we will swap with one of  the wheelchair lift vans, sending the lift van to Hecker and assigning the new van to whichever program gives up their lift van