Welcome to our inaugural newsletter! Our intention is to keep our families and community up to date on events and to give an inside peek into our daily activities. As we enter March, we have lots of fun events planned for our participants to celebrate Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month!
Last month, our participants enjoyed the annual Valentine Dance — check out our Photo Gallery for pictures of the fun!
Coming up on March 29, we’’ll be hosting our 29th Annual The Arc Walk for Independence at Stonewood Center in Downey! Registration, sponsorship opportunities, and more can be found here.
We plan to issue this newsletter every two months. We hope you enjoy it!
Exciting news from the Creative Arts program: several of our participants were honored at Los Angeles City Hall for their work! With fifteen participants, Creative Arts currently has the highest enrollment of The Arc’s programs. These talented individuals have been busy working on their portfolios, looking to expand their artistic opportunities and build their skills beyond exhibitions to engage in the larger Art community in surrounding cities.
Creative Arts is helmed by Program Innovation Leader Sheila, who exposes participants to broader concepts like color theory, sustainability using recycled and upcycled items, and creative freedom. She and her staff help participants find creative ways to express themselves, which is important for everyone but can be vital to those who are semi- or non-verbal.
Program participants and staff have been busy building an in-classroom Gallery that they plan to open to visitors. They take frequent trips to art museums like LACMA, MOLA, The Getty, and The Broad, as well as craft and thrift stores. Sheila is starting an Instagram account to showcase their work as well — follow @Thearclaoccreativearts; it will be active soon.
From crafting to fine arts, the Creative Arts Program caters to every level of artist, from beginner to advanced.
With her welcoming demeanor and sparkling smile, Carol Bejarano seemed like the obvious choice for our very first Employee Spotlight. Carol has been with The Arc for 11 years and is the Program Innovation Leader of the Career Development Program.
In Career Development, she helps participants search and apply for job openings, craft résumés, practice interview skills, and prepare for gainful employment in the workplace. Carol says that she has always been passionate about helping people and she feels that working at The Arc offers a multitude of opportunities to positively impact the lives of individuals with disabilities, foster their independence, and enable them to lead more fulfilling lives in their communities.
Carol’s other passion is family life. Carol grew up with parents who instilled in their thirteen children the importance of loving and respecting one another. Carol remains dedicated to that ethos in her own family every day. An avid traveler, Carol has been all over the world, but she feels that the most interesting places she’s visited are the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Germany and Stonehenge in England. Her favorite way to unwind is with a glass of wine and a good movie. If she ever wins the lottery, her first big purchase would be a house in Cambria, California.
We’ve been making some exciting changes and updates to our facility and programs! We installed a new security system for both buildings, as well as a security gate between the two buildings to keep our fleet of passenger vans safe and sound during off hours. We replaced the defunct roll-up door in Building 1, making it easier to receive deliveries directly to the storage room. And we obtained over 30 new computers and tablets to bring our classrooms more opportunities for learning and fun. Kristian in Career Development is showing us how it’s done! >>
The Arc promotes and protects the human rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and actively supports their full inclusion and participation in the community throughout their lifetimes.
