Staff Blog
Recently, Jacob and Ginda had the privilege to receive new wheelchairs. Their old rides were getting worn out. Thankfully, God is Able International Foundation Inc. took notice of this need and helped us get two wheelchairs for them. Over the years, Jacob and Ginda have been very fortunate in terms of having their needs met. They have received wheelchairs from different people and organizations.
CSC has a few old wheelchairs that past and present kids have outgrown. One of the goals of the Therapy Department at CSC is to get our young adults with special needs engaged in the community. The idea of involving Jacob and Ginda in an outreach event came up, and donating wheelchairs seemed like a perfect event.
The Stimulation and Therapeutic Activity Center (STAC) was the recipient of four wheelchairs that Jacob and Ginda gave. STAC is located in Lapu-Lapu City (Mactan Island). The center is under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). They offer services such as physical, occupational and speech therapy to kids 14 years old and below who are residents of Lapu Lapy City. They also provide seminars and counseling to the parents of the children under their care.
Jorine, was one of the recipients. Together with her brother and sister, they waited for us to arrive. Jorine, 10, is in 4th grade. She has a congenital abnormality in her spine. She is currently wearing orthoses and is using crutches to help her walk and get to the places where she wants to go. Upon trying one of the wheelchairs, she immediately started driving it around and even wanted to try it up and down the ramp. It was wonderful to see her excitement. Now that she has a wheelchair, it will be easier for her to move about from one classroom to another.
Help does not end when you are done helping. It loops like a circle that keeps on going around and around. People we help today will sooner or later end up helping others, as well.
J-O-Y!
Loving life....and more specifically....hackysacks! :)
Thank you to our visitors for giving every kid their very own hackysack---as you can see, they were eagerly received!
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SRA Day!
Last Friday was SRA Day at school! SRA is our reading curriculum so it includes reading, writing, and spelling! We spent the morning having some fun reviewing things the kids had learned in SRA throughout the year. It started off with one student from each level sharing why they like SRA. Then we had a cheer competition. The children were divided into four groups and each group had 10 minutes to create their own cheer about SRA or reading. It was cool to see what they came up with!
After the cheering competition was the spelling contest! The kids took turns writing letters or words on the white board as a review of things they had learned. They also drew pictures that related to some of the themes our classes had studied. Some of the older kids went up and explained how their pictures related to the theme.
The final part of the program involved several presentations by our kids. The Level A students performed sang "The Alphabet Song". Jaime and Pretchy each did a beautiful job sharing poems about reading! Shiela & Rowena sang a duet of "America the Beautiful", a song they learned in one of their reading units. Then three of our Level C students shared stories they had written during class.
Here are some more pictures from our exciting day!
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Friends
Friendships are an important part of life at CSC. Although most of our children have siblings at CSC (about two thirds), they all seek out friends in their age group and enjoy hanging out, playing, making music and talking about life. Our kids can easily find friends who have similar backgrounds and can understand and accept what they have gone through in life. Some friendships can go on for several years, depending on how long the children stay at CSC. When a child leaves for adoption there are often sad friends left behind who wonder if they'll ever see them again. In some cases, friendships that began at CSC can pick up later on when children are placed in the same geographical area. Check out a few pictures of friends at CSC:
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Movie Night
One of the things we often hear at CSC is laughter, and one of the best places to hear it is during a movie night.
It's hard to organize a trip to the movie theater, so often times staff will gather up a group of kids and setup the projector in the library at the school. The movie night below was a "girl's night out" that Teacher Lindsay organized. However, being the IT guy, I was allowed to attend because I had to setup the screen and projector. :)
The movie was Mr. Popper's Penguins.
It's hard to see much in the video below, but it's really fun to listen to the laughter of the kids.
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The Littlest Waveboarder
Waveboarding is the cool thing to do during playtime here at CSC. Lots of the older kids got waveboards for Christmas, but recently more and more of the little kids want to try the waveboards as well. The other day I noticed this little lady trying out her older sister's waveboard in the driveway and I couldn't stop laughing - it was so cute! And she's so good at it!
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