Sponsors and volunteers are needed for this event. For more
information on helping or attending, please call Doris Clarkston, president of
the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Benefit for the Disabled at (248) 618-8900
or William FitzGerald (CQ), the vice
president of the nonprofit at (248) 736-9023. Those interested can visit the
website at www.ocsdbenefit.org.
By JERRY WOLFFE
The 28th Annual Disabled Children’s Fishing Derby, sponsored
by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, is scheduled for Aug. 13 at Dodge Park
No. 4 in Waterford between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.
More than 100 volunteers will help an estimated 700 children
with physical and cognitive impairments have a “great day of boat rides, games,
and food and fun,” according to Doris Clarkston, the president of the Oakland
County Sheriff’s Office Benefit for the Disabled.
“We also will have the command staff at the fishing derby to
help cook and serve food,” Clarkston said. She added that the Sheriff’s
Department’s Marine Safety Division/Dive Team and an EMS unit will be at the
Cass Lake location where the park is located “to ensure the safety of the
children and other participants on the water.”
Our Lady of the Lakes High School Football team will be in
attendance at the park at 4250 Parkway to help load the children into and off
of Pontoon boats. Owners of the boats have volunteered them for the outing.
“A lot of these children seldom have opportunities to go
boating and be in a park,” she said. “We are working as an organization to
build an accessible playground to enhance the park experience.”
The department will provide lunch, fishing poles, games, and
fun for each child. The children with disabilities will come from all over
Oakland County “to have a great day,” Clarkston said.
Jerry Wolffe is the
writer-in-residence/advocate-at-large at the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center. He
can be reached at 586 263-8950.
AUBURN HILLS -- For many families, the summer transition from daily
routines guided by the education system to a less formal schedule can be
challenging. This is especially true for families who rely on special education
services to support children who have a serious emotional disturbance or
developmental disability
Experts from Oakland County
Community Mental Health Authority are encouraging parents to remember that
after school lets out, it is important that children and their families
maintain a structured day. The amount of structure depends on each family.
They recommend that parents
establish at least three goals to identify new learning experiences.
At the top
of their list are ideas for activities in Oakland County that have little or no
cost:
·Explore your local, County and State parks
·Attend day and/or overnight camps
·Plant and maintain a garden
·Take an art class
·Learn to cook, sew or repair something
·Visit your local library
·Help a neighbor in need
·Attend movie nights or concerts in the parks.
More suggestions for inexpensive
summer family fun experiences can be found online at Oakland County Moms.com,
Metroparent.com, and DestinationOakland.com.
Jerry Wolffe is the writer-in-residence, advocate-at-large at the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center. He can be reached at (586) 263-8950.
As mother lay dying, people she had cared for and gathered into her tender arms were coming into the nursing home to pay their respects.
"I love you," her godson Dominic Gerard, would say. Mother would open her eyes and say: "I love you too Dominic!' Alana, a young lady she had known since she was 4 and had taken her under her wings, said: "Carol, I love you!' Mother, fighting to rise out of that coma, responded: "1love you too Alana." "I love you, too, Tommy and Kathy," she said to her nephew and his wife. "Monica I love you:' she said in response to a young lady who lived with her when she was young and was a tremendous loving caregiver who told her of her love.
My turn finally came.
"Mom:' I said loudly because her lapses of consciousness were growing longer: "This is Jerry. I love you mother." Almost instantly she opened her blue eyes and looked at me and said: "You should."
And she's right.
Without her and my father Vince's love, I would have spent my life in an institution for the disabled, which was the norm in the late 1940s. "Get blanked," she and dad told the doctor when he said: "It would be better for all if Jerry was institutionalized."
They took me home and raised me to be normal. My , sisters, Nancy and Rene, helped. They fought the dumb bullies who tried to beat on me. They ran the bases when I played catch in the neighborhood with the boys.
Nancy, as a 2-year-old, would get down on her hands and knees in deep snow or ice and ,let me use her back to push off of so I could get back up after falling. Mother demanded I be able to go to school 25 years before the federal law was passed requiring that a boy or girl with a disability had the legal right for a public education because she knew how important education would be to a child with cerebral palsy.
She and dad demanded I go to Osborn Public High School in 1960 at which time I told the principal I would not go into a room that said "handicapped." I got a key from the principal I for the elevator and probably was among the first kids with a disability to be mainstreamed.'
When I was refused jobs because some foolish employer could only see the way I walked instead of my smile - which I got from her, and my ability - she comforted me.
She loved my dear wife JoAnn as her own daughter. She made JoAnn promise when she died, JoAnn would stay with me. She also told us children, "You are now old enough, I don't have to worry about you anymore."
People say I am an advocate. She was the prime mover in my life and the strongest and most noble advocate I have ever known.
When we moved into a new neighborhood, she would scout out all the boys my age and tell them about Jerry and how he had a small disability and how he'd like to be their friends.
One hot summer day 55 years ago or so, she came out while I was trying to fit in and play baseball with a platter of ice cold watermelon. After that, I was "In Like Flint" with the guys.
We fought. I took out all the rejection the world heaped upon me as a child and teenager and raged at mother as though she did it. God forgive me now. We cried together. She is more than likely the most significant driving force to succeed in my life and that of others than anyone else I have ever met ...and after being a reporter for 45 years, I've met thousands. '
After each of the 31surgeries I had, mother was there outside of the operating room to take care of me, sometimes with Nancy and Rene. She fought through her own fears to help ease my fears of pain, death and dying.
There will never be another Carolyn Owens Wolffe.
When she would come in to Leland, an orthopedic school, everyone would say "who is that beautiful redheaded lady dressed so fine?" I'd proudly say "that's my mother. She sure is something, eh?"
Now many hearts are broken but she helped change a large part of the world and the good she did will not be buried with her but will live for eons.
She not only got me into school, but helped many other children with disabilities, including twins Dennis and Donald Lipinski who had Muscular Dystrophy.
She would feed stray cats but deny it when we caught her.
So now I know mother is with God and there's a hole in my heart that I shall live with until I go to be with her and all of our ancestors in the presence of God.
So now at night I will look into the heavens and there will be a bright new star just east of the North star. We all will love you forever, ma. Jerry, Nancy, Rene, JoAnn, Bob, Paul and everyone else.
MI Choice Waiver Program that helps seniors, disabled stay in home, accepting applicants
Shannon Patton with some of the birdhouses and other items she
makes in her spare time. She has caregivers come to her Oxford home to
help her with cooking, dressing and shopping daily under the MI Choice
program.
Photo submitted by Jerry Wolffe
By Jerry Wolffe, Special to The Oakland Press
Posted:
|
FYI
MORC Home Care: MI Choice Medicaid Waiver program
Phone: 1-866-593-7413
Online: www.MORCHomeCare.org
Shannon Patton of Oxford can spend her free time painting birdhouses
in the comfort of her home instead of living in a nursing home.
That’s because she’s receiving daily help from the MI Choice
Waiver program. It uses Medicaid funds to hire caregivers to come into
her apartment and help her with dressing, cooking and cleaning.
Patton, 52, has been receiving services for three years which she says “are just wonderful.”
Several women take turns seven days a week, 2.5 hours a day, to
help Patton, so she can stay in her apartment. Patton has juvenile
rheumatoid arthritis.
“They make my meals,” she said. “They also help me take a bath or
shower, do housework, change bed sheets, do laundry, vacuum, dust
furniture and do whatever needs to be done.
“They have helped me so much,” Patton said. “MI Choice even provided money so I could have a portable air conditioning unit.”
Her service provider is Bay Nursing of Romeo.
Another MI Choice recipient, Michael Renaud, 48, of St. Clair
Shores, incurred a spinal cord injury 11 years ago in a diving accident.
He receives 42 hours of service a week.
“This allows me to stay in my home,” said the father of two adult
daughters, and husband of Kirsten. He has been a coach of a traveling
women’s fast-pitch softball team since 1998 involving 21 different
teams.
Caregivers also drive him to games that he coaches. He receives help in bathing, dressing and eating.
In addition, they do light cleaning of his home, shop for food
and pick up medicine and take Renaud, who is paralyzed from the
shoulders down, to medical appointments.
“Without this help, I’d be in a nursing home,” he said. “My wife
also wouldn’t be able to work because there’d be no one to help me.”
After an initial intake review, those accepted in the MI Choice
Waiver program are given a list of vendors who supply trained workers to
come into the home to help a senior or a person with a disability with
daily living tasks, said Marcia Marklin, MORC’s Home Care Program
Manager.
Services include adult day care, help with chores, counseling,
community living supports, home modifications, delivering meals, helping
obtain medical equipment and supplies, private duty nursing, respite
care, training and some transportation.
Medicaid pays the cost of MI Choice services.
To be eligible, recipients of aid must be Medicaid eligible, 18
years of age or older with a disability who would otherwise require
living in a nursing home, or be at least 65 in need of nursing home
care.
Financial eligibility includes not having $2,000 or more in cash
or investments and an annual income of $21,163 for a single person or
$42,326 for a family of two. Recipients can own a car and home.
People living in Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Monroe, St. Clair
and Washtenaw counties are eligible for MI Choice services through MORC.
Marklin said MORC recently transitioned about 15 to 20 people out
of nursing homes into their own place to live. Those receiving services
are 18 to 96.
“This program is about allowing people to live a life with dignity in the setting of their choice,” she said.
“This is an important service because our society and government
never adequately prepared for the needs of seniors and those with
disabilities,” she said.
“MORC Home Care is open for intake. Call if you have need, or want to know more about the program.”
Those interested in receiving help from MI Choice should call the
Macomb-Oakland Regional Center’s intake line at 1-866-593-7413.
Jerry Wolffe is the writer-in-residence and advocate-at-large at
the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center. He can be reached at 586 263-8950.
Common
Ground is participating in a task
force to raise awareness of human trafficking and co-sponsoring a women’s
networking event, “Chained — A
Program on Human Trafficking,” with human trafficking survivor Theresa Flores.
The event
is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on June 26 at the Village Club of Bloomfield Hills, 190 East
Long Lake Road. A portion of the $90 ticket price will be donated to Common
Ground’s Victim’s Assistance Program,
which provides 24-hour access to counselors and advocates for victims of crime,
domestic and sexual abuse
and workplace violence.
Flores, who
was a teenager from Birmingham when she was kidnapped, will share her
story of
trafficking and being a sex slave. It is a compelling look at a billion-dollar industry that forces thousands
around the world and in southeastern Michigan into activities against their
will, a Common Ground spokeswoman said.
"Every day,
the horror of human trafficking is perpetrated by profit-seeking predators who
exploit children,
women and men for sex and labor services. Increasingly, traffickers
conduct their illicit
operations in Michigan,” said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette.
“Human
traffickers take advantage of technology to remain anonymous and keep their
victims hidden in the
shadows,” he added. "Our daughters, friends and neighbors are forced
into prostitution,
domestic servitude and other forced labor by traffickers who take advantage of them."
The
social justice movement of this century is likely to focus on acquiring equal
rights and opportunities for the 57 million people in the United States and 1
billion globally who have a disability.
People
with disabilities are the largest minority group in America and anyone can
become a member at any time, according to Disability Funders Network.
The DFN is a national
membership and philanthropic advocacy organization that seeks equality and
rights for individuals with disabilities.
The
economic data uncovered by the DFN, which was established in 1994 to be a
catalyst for creating new understanding of how funders can promote inclusion of
those with disabilities in grant-making programs, is disheartening.
More
than 65 percent of working age adults with disabilities is unemployed, it says.
Of those working, one-third earn an income below the poverty level. The jobless
rate of people with disabilities also is 10 times greater than the U.S.
unemployment rate, the DFN found.
The
number of people “living with a chronic health condition” is expected to
increase to 150 million in the United States by 2030.
DFN
also found:
oDespite the strides made in
the disability rights during the past 25 years, the majority of people with
disabilities are poor, under-employed, and under-educated due largely to
unequal opportunities. This, despite findings by the U.S. Department of Education
which said workers with disabilities are rated “consistently as average or
above average in performance, quality, and quantity of work, flexibility, and
attendance.”
oThe Foundation Center
Tuesday (6.3) reported that out of
more than $3 billion spent in philanthropic giving, only 2.9 percent of grants
made by institutionalized philanthropy are directed to programs serving people
with disabilities.
oDisability belongs in any grant-making
program that supports diversity. Or Education. Or employment. Or housing. Arts
and culture. And, any other element of life because the interests of those with
disabilities mirrors those of all groups in the nation.
We
in the disability community call the able-bodied TABS because it means temporarily
Able-Bodied because sooner or later an accident, disease, or old age will force
its way into your life, leaving you less able and perhaps with a severe
disability. So when you fight for those of us with disabilities, you are
fighting to have a good future for yourself and loved ones and to free an
oppressed people.
Jerry Wolffe is the
writer-in-residence/advocate-at-large of the Macomb-Oakland Regional Center. He
can be reached at (586) 263-8950.
