On a lovely summer day in August, The Renaissance Program artists and staff went to a nearby Park to create art in the style of Andrew Goldsworthy. We collected anything beautiful that we could find in nature: flowers, stones, twigs, leaves, berries… in glorious colors to create our artworks. A bit of artful arranging and we had these beautiful sculptures. After photographing, we left our art behind for visitors to discover on their way. As you can see from these pictures, a good time was had by all.

Palmer Center, our longstanding and award winning home for 26 aging individuals is about to get a new lease on life! 

While we are proud of the services and supports provided by our excellent staff at Palmer, we recognized several years ago that after more than 25 years we needed to make significant improvements to the physical environment.
And so we went about  securing funds through the New York State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities so that we can now build three state of the art homes, each of which will serve 10 persons.
Ulster Greene Arc is a creative provider committed to the people we serve, and eager to provide the best services possible.  We continue to be interested in new and innovative approaches to service delivery, and are committed to the process of building services around the needs of the people we serve.  Constructing three-ten person homes to replace a large twenty-six bed site will allow us to provide more individualized services to the people living there. These homes will be fully accessible for the people, many of whom are nonambulatory. It will create greater privacy in that each person will have a single bedroom. Such features as generous natural light, and attention to detail in lighting and other design features will contribute to a more homelike atmosphere while continuing to provide the intensive medical oversight so necessary to achieve nursing home diversion.  In addition, this construction will allow us to meet the needs of four more people.  We anticipate using one home to provide intensive services to individuals who have aging issues such as Alzheimer's disease.  We are grateful for the sensitive and professional approach taken to the project’s design by the architectural firm of Scott Dutton Associates, LLC and the engineering firm of Brinnier and Larios, P.C.

We also have the good fortune to be working with the two firms, serving as primary contractors: Kirchoff Consigli Construction Management, and Arold Construction Company.

As the pace of the project is moving quickly, we hope to achieve occupancy by early 2010!

During the week of June 22nd, Margaret Hoffmann, Community Support Services Director, Service Coordinators Nakeyia Younger and Jason Hocker, and Brian Doyle, Associate Executive Director, traveled to Baldwinsville, a small town outside of Syracuse to work with three of the person’s for whom we provide services in an extraordinary two-day experience in person-centered work: Awakening the Spirit

This immersion conference, sponsored by Onondaga Community Living, was a unique opportunity to work with and learn from Dr. Beth Mount and Executive Director of Onondaga Community Living, Pat Frantangelo, both pioneers in individualized supports.

We, along with other agencies from across the state, discussed and hammered out how to move forward with innovative and individualized services. During the conference, we worked with three individuals – Marsha Koument, Phillip Velonis, and Brenda Berryan, to look deeply into their life histories, the important relationships in their lives, their choices, preferences, dreams, goals, as well as their vulnerabilities and needs. Through these very far reaching discussions and utilizing person centered tools developed by Onondaga Community Living, we learned much more then is ordinarily discovered through the typical ISP process.

Marsha, Phillip and Brenda were refreshingly forthcoming, candid and insightful in speaking about who they really are as persons and what they really want for their lives. Perhaps most importantly we learned a great deal of the gifts they have to offer those around them.

Through a new pilot “Portal” Program introduced by OMRDD, we will now be working with Marsha, Phillip and Brenda, as well as several other people to develop highly individualized plans and supports that will help them move toward their dreams and desires in a deliberate and focused way. Once again, we look to live our Mission: To offer people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities opportunities to live and experience full lives.