Kimoni Fearon
This Friday I interviewed Kecia Crafton a supervisor at a local nonprofit organization named Heartshare Human Services of New York. It is located right on Livingston and bond street a couple blocks away from City Tech. This organization provides many services for the mentally disabled starting from preschool all the way to adulthood. I was able to go into the day program to get a feel of what it was like. When I first entered it reminded me of a mini school. There were classrooms, a cafeteria and even a nurse office. I found out that the day program I visited was one strictly for adults and the clients attended Monday through Friday like an actual school. Kecia informed me that the day program was modeled after a school and was to sort of take the place as a school for the mentally disabled because a lot of them were not able to attend school and be in a classroom setting. She gave me a little insight on how a normal day went at the program. “Every morning the clients are picked up from their homes or if they live in residential homes they were picked up from there on a school bus. They are then brought to the “school” signed in and then their day begins. Since they are adults in the adult day program some of them go to “work” at jobs that our organization was able to get them. We also teach them basic skills like teaching them how to brush their teeth and keep them selves clean. Some of them also do a little bit of academics with professionals and most of them do volunteer work at senior centers”. From time to time Kecia also told me that they like to take them out on fun trips every once in a while like to the museum or to the movies and also even shopping when they get their paychecks from their jobs. I asked her why they decided to come up with this program and these were her exact words, “ we want them to be able to realize that they can do what other people are able to do. That they can be normal and go to work or to the movies or school just like everyone else” and I was able to see that just from the little amount of time I spent there. It’s a great organization that is giving those who are deemed as “different” in society a chance to live a normal life and I 100 percent support that. I only wish that more people knew about this organization because they would be able to make a great impact on a lot of people’s lives.