Day 7: Noble

Today was the last day of our trip. We were all in shock as to how quickly this trip passed us by, but like everyday, we were ecstatic about experiencing the day ahead.

We spent our morning at Noble of Indiana, an organization that engages people with disabilities with job growth opportunities with the ultimate goal of integrating them into the community. By aiming to do so, they are able to make meaningful lives for adults with developmental disabilities. When we walked in, a few of us were underwhelmed by the warehouse atmosphere of the place. That impression was quickly turned around as soon as we toured the facility and saw how happily the people working there were while doing their jobs. A lot of them worked on packaging things like gaskets and after school lunches. The organization also offers classes about issues like dealing with anxiety and interview trainings.

While we were there, we were assigned a variety of tasks. One group worked inside in a storage room that held a lot of their crafts and other tools. They primarily focused on cleaning up the space so that the organization could fit in newer materials. Another group worked on filing. The rest of us worked outside, where we split into two groups. One group cleaned up plastic bins for the workers to use and the other group cleaned up trash surrounding the area. Due to thunderstorms, we quickly retreated back inside.

Thankfully, we also got a chance to interact with some of the employees during lunch time. We exchanged so many hugs and handshakes. It was so wonderful to watch the employees joking around with each other, sharing stories, and enjoying lunch in large groups. I sensed the love and respect for each other's similarities and differences - there was such a strong sense of community! They never missed a chance to introduce themselves to one of our team members and also to learn our names. Also, they were genuinely interested in holding a conversation with us and joking around whenever the opportunity was present. One guy was especially humorous: he told us his birthday was on the 4th of July, and when we asked him if he enjoys fireworks, he responded by proclaiming that he is a firework. That definitely got us laughing. It was a great way to take a break from the work we were assigned and form some new friendships with some truly kind-hearted people.


To sum up what our experiences have taught us over this past week, we created a timeline of where we hope to see ourselves in the future. These dreams may have been newly formed, with inspiration from all of the new knowledge we have gained in Indianapolis. Allison facilitated an activity that allowed us to deeply examine the reasons why we decided to come on this trip, and how this might have changed throughout this past week.



The church was kind enough to offer us to join them for their weekly Wednesday night dinners. Tonight's menu featured the most delicious baked potato bar with tasty toppings, leftover wedding cake, and killer cookie brownies made by Erika and Jackie! It was an amazingly delicious night shared with the community that has given us so much. We couldn't be more thankful to have stayed under the roof of such hospitable people. 

We ended our trip by exchanging some very entertaining paper plate awards, including "most likely to not be able to keep a surprise" and "most likely to use the word 'trueee'" just to name a few. Secret Angels were also finally revealed. It was nice to just wind down together and enjoy our final night.

This week has provided us all with an incredibly enriching experience. We've grown so close and plan on maintaining our friendships beyond this trip. We were hoping to meet up every once in a while to just hang out and also to volunteer together at local organizations that are similar to the ones we visited this week. What happens here stays here, but what's learned here leaves from here. We can't wait to grow from our experiences and see what the future holds.


Day 6: New Hope of Indiana

Today, we went to a facility called New Hope of Indiana. It is a branch off of St. Vincent's Hospital, which focuses on a very person centered approach to its participants. As soon as we entered the facility, the hustle and bustle of the participants and staff was indicative of what a busy place it was. At first glance, the building did not come off as very large, and even one of the managers joking said it wasn't anything like the Taj Mahal. However, there was something special about New Hope. With its expansive hallways and artwork covering every blank wall space, it had the essence of an elementary school, except for adults.

After a quick tour of the facility, our team split up into two groups. One group went outside to the garden, and the other to the recreational therapist. Getting a chance to garden with the participants was an incredibly rewarding experience. They were very motivated and eager to put a plan to action. In the end, the worn out garden beds were transformed to beautiful raised flower gardens!

The other groups sat in on the two recreational therapists that work at New Hope. As someone that has never heard of this type of therapy, it was very interesting. The therapists aim to incorporate fun activities that engage that persons interests and senses. Their techniques were unique, as the therapist designed them specifically for that participant. It was refreshing to see the bond that had formed between the therapist and client, as they had been working together for some time. You could sense the impact the therapist was making on his/her motor skills, or whatever aspect they were working on.

Unlike our previous destinations, New Hope of Indiana had a set of core values which they actively strive to follow. For example, they specifically chose to call the individuals with disabilities "clients", "individuals", and "participants", which is quite different from the term "guests" we heard at Joy's House. Despite the high level of dependency the clients might have had on their caregivers, New Hope tried to give them as much freedom of choice as possible. Clients were able to choose what activity to do after lunch-- drawing, crafts, music, playing games on the iPad, or even simply wandering the facility. In fact, the staff had calculated that 12 laps around the building equaled a mile, so the clients could feel they accomplished something.

New Hope also had a completely different atmosphere than the nursing home we visited yesterday. At the nursing home, the staff were mainly their caregivers. Here, the staff not only cared for them but treated them as adults who could make their own decisions. Both at the nursing home and Joy's house, the activities were very structured and almost required. At New Hope, there was more free reign.

One interesting aspect was learning about the complicated relationship between facilities such as New Hope and Medicare/Medicaid. We never considered how vital yet frustrating the administrative side of running a facility could be. Funding and insurance coverage determined much of what they were able to accomplish. The man in charge of fixing assistive devices gave us an overview of the loopholes and regulations he dealt with. As a group, we got to look at forms that those who had disabled dependents needed to fill out. We simply got a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes work that goes behind New Hope, and those with disabilities in general.

All in all, it was a very inspiring day. New Hope had a novel and fun approach to the issue of mental and physical disabilities, one that every such center should implement too!

Day 5: Hooverwood, AXS Mapathon

We started our day volunteering at the Hooverwood Indianapolis Jewish Adult Day Care Center. We were able to meet and interact with the wonderful residents there while playing everyone's favorite classic game, BINGO! The residents were really excited to play; in fact, they were cheering BINGO before the game even began, practicing their cheers early! It was so amazing that all the residents left as winners! They received chocolate kisses from us and got tickets to be used to redeem at the gift store. One resident, Miss Mamrie, was so excited to get her prize, winning 6 tickets in total, asked me to go with her to the gift shop right after the game was over. She was extremely happy with the peanut butter snacks, that I got to help her pick out! Another resident, Miss Rosie, was extremely sweet to us volunteers. Instead of keeping the prizes she won for herself, she insisted that we have the chocolate kisses and the tickets. I loved the kindness in all the residents there!

After volunteering at Hooverwood, we went to the Indianapolis Arts Museum to explore the sculpture garden. We saw many different interesting artworks, including the skeleton sculpture (featured in the movie The Fault in Our Stars!) and the infinite amount of signs artwork (featured in the picture below). Overall, it was a great quick 45- minute visit in the garden, even if we came out drenched from being caught in the rainstorm.

To end our day, we explored the downtown area of Indianapolis to complete the AXS Mapathon. Here, we focused on visiting restaurants and businesses around this area to figure out how accessible each were for customers with disabilities. From this Mapathon, we discovered that majority of the places allowed guide dogs and had very wide spaces, and no stairs, for wheelchairs. Lastly, an employer we interviewed informed us that there were handicap parking spaces found on all corners of the streets in the entire state of Indiana. After completing this activity, I believe I will be much more aware of the structures of buildings around campus in accessing the students with disabilities. It was great to know, especially in the city area of Indiana, that majority of these restaurants and businesses were able to accommodate to those needs. Finally, we finished our night with some delicious ice cream from downtown. It was great that we were able to fit in all these informing and fulfilling activities in our day!

-Anne Lai

Hooverwood Indianapolis Adult Day Care Center By: Alex Hemmer

Today we went to volunteer at Hooverwood Indianapolis Jewish Adult Day Care Center. We were given a brief tour of the center and began to set up bingo! We brought residents to the activity room and helped them get started with their bingo cards.   A lot of the residents that I interacted with were more dependent and less responsive to conversation. Many residents were not that interested in actually playing bingo, but the activity got them out of their rooms and into a newer environment. I noticed that the staff at Hooverwood was a bit pushy with which residents were brought out to play. One women I was told to take to play bingo kept asking me to stop and I had a hard time determining who to listen to in that moment. This brought me to consider if I was doing her a favor by getting her out of her room, or a disservice by ignoring her request to stay. In the end she was happy to be in the bingo room (even though she slept through most of bingo) but bringing her there was a bit difficult.

Most of the table I sat at during bingo was disinterested and slept through most of the game. The gentleman next to me however played well and asked me lots of questions about our stay in Indiana. He wanted to know a lot about the Indy 500 and wanted all the details of our previous day. He also preferred traditional bingo rules, the rules we played was that you could only win with vertical in one round and only horizontal in another round. He kept getting bingo but not the way that the round required, this caused him a bit of confusion and irritation. Another lady I spoke with was extraordinarily happy to play bingo and requested that I make sure she yells bingo if she got it. It was refreshing to see such cheer brought to her eyes as we played the game.

               

 Later on we watched a movie called Gattaca which was a story about a dystopian society in which genetic modification is the norm. Conventionally conceived children were part of a lower class, since they were at a higher risk of developing medical problems or disabilities. The main character wanted to go to space and in order to do that he had to jump classes. The movie calls into question what we define as a disability and the role of technology in potentially eradicating disability. Do we want to eradicate all disabilities? Would that necessarily be better for society or would we lose something else? Would we lose humanity in that process? One of the problems the main character faced was lack of 20/20 vision. In today’s society glasses are a common part of many people’s lives and are not considered a major disability. In the movie however glasses are seen as a clear marker for the lower disabled class as it marks an imperfection in the genome.  The society in the movie was obsessed with perfection and genetics, for example it was common for partners to check one another’s DNA sequence behind their backs. The perfectionism that was present in this society was inherently toxic and caused unrest among both the able-bodied and the disabled classes. In a class I recently took we talked a lot about perfectionism and I learned that if “you do not learn to fail, you will fail to learn.” Failure and imperfection is a natural part of life and an inability to accept that will only hurt you further.

Finally we spent the evening checking businesses in downtown Indianapolis for accessibility. We rated businesses based on the AXS Mapathon. Most of the businesses that I encountered had wide enough doors and no steps in front. Most of the stores did not have a bathroom which is unfortunate, however the Starbucks that we encountered had a very accessible bathroom. The bathroom had a wide door, was spacious, had two support bars, and low sinks. I began to notice a lot more accessibility features as we went through businesses with this alternative lens. I thought that overall Indianapolis seemed like a very accessible city, but I am interested in seeing how our hometown of College Park compares. 

Indy Tourist Day! By: Alex Hemmer

One day of an Alternative Break trip is reserved for cultural exploration. We are staying at the Englewood Christian Church. On Sunday a group of us went to the service that was given that morning. The service was enjoyable and gave us better insight into the work that this group does. The Englewood Church invests a lot of time and energy into the surrounding neighborhood. One thing the church is well known for is for providing affordable housing to those in need. Englewood buys and refurbishes abandoned houses and provides housing at prices that are lower than market value. The work they put into the community is truly beautiful and reminds me of the true nature of religion.  One particular moment from the service that stays with me was when the pastor talked about giving in terms of religion. He said that many people expect God to return to them 10 or 100 fold what they have given. If they give ten dollars they expect that twenty dollars of good fortune to be returned to them. He said that this is not to be expected, what should be expected is that God will give 100 or 1000 fold to the community. This resonated with me as we work on this service trip. The work these people do is truly amazing and their philosophy is beautiful. It is a pleasure to be able to interact with these wonderful people as we work with different organizations in Indiana.

               

Exploration! After the church service we started to explore Indianapolis. Half of the group went to the local art museum and explored the sculpture gardens. I was part of the group that wanted to experience the Indy 500 in all its glory. It felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in Indianapolis and exploring the city on the day of the race.  We sat in general admission on the infield of the track and had a magnificent view of the cars. We thoroughly enjoyed immersing ourselves in the Indiana culture of racing. The excitement in the air quickly transferred to us as we entered the arena. The excitement that was present was contagious. I was thrilled that we had the opportunity to appreciate such a huge event that makes up the culture of Indianapolis. 

Exploring Indy!

Today was our cultural exploration day, which was our first opportunity to really explore the great city of Indianapolis.  We got to sleep in today (slept in until 9!) and woke up to delicious cinnamon rolls provided to us generously by the church.  We then had the rest of the morning to hang out, play games, throw around the frisbee, and attend the Sunday service being held at our church.

Then we all drove down together to a beautiful, scenic canal right outside of downtown Indy.  The water was so peaceful and there were birds and kayaks and paddleboats and lots of runners and bikers all around.  We had our nice bagged lunches here and spent time relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Next we headed down to the stadium where the Indy 500 was taking place.  We figured it would be a cool, once in a lifetime opportunity to actually experience this huge event and since we just happened to be in Indy, we should definitely check it out.  We didn't think we would be able to get very close to the race, but we ended up being able to drive right up to the arena and park really close by and walk over to the arena.  The race was crazy loud, and even though we couldn't see the actual race cars over the fence, we watched the race projected on the huge television screen.  Even though most of us weren't super enthusiastic about race cars, it was pretty cool to experience how insanely fast these cars were racing and we got to experience the wild and fun crowd that attends this event.

From this point on we split into two groups:  One group wanted to actually go into the stadium to watch the race and the second group (the one I chose) decided to head over to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The museum was incredible and it features all different types of artwork, from life size model cars to ancient Roman artwork to very modern pieces.  We also got to design our own "dream cars" and I created a masterpiece that was expensive, not fuel efficient, and slow (and ugly).  After spending a couple hours inside the museum we took a walk through the beautiful gardens surrounding the museum.  We also got to tour around a huge mansion, greenhouse, and vineyard that were all previously owned by a family who then donated all of their property for public use.  Simonne got to see Tiffany silverware, which she was very excited about.

After a long day full of walking, we settled back in the church and had delicious pasta and chicken and vegetables and garlic bread and salad (with the lettuce we picked from the farm!) for dinner and ate outside once again.

Then we started our daily reflection.  We shared fun events from our day and then made a word web centering on "disability".  From this activity we realized just how many different issues there are surrounding disability, and how we could never even come close to fully covering all of these different aspects in just one week's trip.

We finished the night by watching the movie, "My Left Foot," which is a biography of Christy Brown, a man who has cerebral palsy and is almost entirely paralyzed.  It chronicles his life from his childhood through adulthood, where he successfully becomes a poet, painter, and writer with the use of his left foot (his only functioning limb).  We also got delicious sugar cookies that the church gave us!

It was a really fun day, and even though we are all exhausted from a long week so far, we are looking forward to working at a nursing home tomorrow and meeting more incredible individuals!

-Jackie

Global Peace Initiative!

Matt O'Mahoney-

Today we headed over to the Global Peace Initiative, a non-profit farm that operates completely through volunteer work. They believe strongly that service working in a sustainable agricultural environment benefits everyone, from the volunteers themselves on a personal level, to then the community at large. They take volunteer groups from every population, ranging from prisoners working to re-enter society, to teenagers with mental disabilities.

Our group spent the whole (beautiful!) day working on a variety of projects, ranging from feeding  chickens and collecting chicken eggs to maintaining and weeding the garden, which looked so much better after the day was done! The volunteers there were all super nice and were really special people. You could tell they had a passion for helping others and teaching them sustainable living. Anyway, below is a picture of everyone giving a peace sign as homage to their being the Global Peace Initiative. It was a great day :)

Jackie Weiss- 

After we got back from an amazing day at the farm, we had time to relax and shower (and go for a run!) before all sitting down together and reflecting on the day.  We discussed how we all learned so much more than we ever thought we would and how much we loved all of the volunteers there. While the issue of agriculture and sustainable living weren’t directly related to our focus on disabilities, it was cool to be exposed to another issue and learn about new topics as well.  During reflection we also read Harrison Bergeron, which is a short story about a dystopian world where all people must live as “equals,” so those with above average intelligence were handicapped with loud noises in headphones so they couldn’t concentrate and those with above average strength had to carry around weights to slow them down.  It really got us all thinking about the whole idea of what is “normal” and who decides this and the benefits of individual differences.

We had delicious tacos for dinner and then we all watched the 2010 movie, “Temple Grandin.”  The movie is based on a true story about a woman with autism who, despite doctors saying she would never speak, graduated from college with a masters and a doctorate and created a humane and efficient cattle system that is now used all over the country.  The movie did a great job of portraying what it would be like to actually have autism because it took place mainly from her point of view.  We got to see the world through her eyes as all of her thoughts take place through images and all of the sensory stimuli she takes in (such as the sound of a ceiling fan or pen clicking) is extremely amplified.  Watching this movie was a great way to discuss many of the key issues we have talked about so far regarding disabilities.

 

Tomorrow we get to explore Indianapolis (and it’s the day of the Indy 500!) so we are all super pumped!