This week, I was tasked with visiting two locations of ARC that I had not been to before. As I’ve stated in my recent blog, ARC has five different locations across Columbus where they serve people with disabilities. Each location is vastly different from the others. The structure can be different based on the participant’s needs or interests.

To start off, I spent the first day in Grove City at a small location with only five participants that day. To begin the morning, we did arts and crafts by painting ceramic mermaids. Afterwards, we all ate lunch together and took off to Dave and Busters for the afternoon. My roommate and friends were pretty jealous that I got to spend my day at the arcade and I was getting paid to do so. One of the participants is deaf, and relies on ASL to communicate. In college so far, I have taken three semesters of ASL. While I am no where near fluent, I can easily start and hold a conversation in ASL. I thought it was really cool to be able to use my skills from school in the real world. This participant signed really fast, and though I had to ask her to slow down a few times, we successfully communicated with each other throughout the day.

The next day, I went to Gahanna to a different location. This was probably my favorite building that I have visited so far. This building resembles a school. There are multiple classrooms inside, an art space, a gym, and there is even a space outside where participants garden and enjoy time outside during the day. This building was full of art from different participants throughout the years, and it was beautiful to walk through. I spent my day popping in and out of classrooms, observing different activities and routines. There were two particular things that stood out to me from this day. First of all, there was a room with a box full of baby chicks that participants had watched hatch. I spent a significant amount of time holding and gawking over these tiny little baby chicks– definitely a highlight of my day and I now want a baby chick to carry around in my pocket at all times. Secondly, I got to observe a participant led activity that occurs every single day at this location. One participant gets on stage to sing and play piano, and others from various rooms come in to play other instruments, sing along, request songs, or just enjoy the music. This entire experience was amazing to watch. The leading participant is blind, and watching him play beautiful songs on the piano was really incredible to see. I even got the song “Piano Man” dedicated to me that day, which made me feel pretty special.

Overall, the main trend that I have noticed as I’ve travelled in between these locations is how sweet and welcoming everyone is. The staff at ARC have been nothing but supportive. The participants have all been excited to meet me and talk with me about my life and theirs as well. I have truly had some of the most rewarding days in these last couple weeks.

I ended my week by engaging in trainings for the Next Chapter book club. This is a program to provide meaningful opportunities and social connections for individuals with developmental disabilities through community based book club meetings. ARC is going to start participating in this book club, and I have been put on this project so we can find ways to incorporate it into our day programs. While I have just done the trainings, I am excited to get started on launching the project!