Alpha Resource Center of Santa Barbara opened its doors to the public Friday to showcase the programs it provides to South Coast adults with developmental disabilities.
The center supports more than 1,800 families with individuals who have a wide range of developmental challenges, executive director Kim Olson said. The adults include some with Down syndrome who live semi-independently with part-time jobs to others with severe disabilities who require constant care to eat and have diapers changed.
“From a parent’s position, this is the safety net,” said Lynn Rodriguez, a member of the Alpha Board of Directors and parent of a 17-year-old with Down syndrome. “It gives you the sense that my child can do anything. That isn’t available in every community because there’s not an Alpha.”
Through the center’s teen program, Rodriguez said her daughter, Blair, has been given a social life that includes going out to dinner and to the movies with other teenagers.
“For a lot of them, it’s the one time they get to have fun with their friends without being supervised by their parents,” recreation director Amy Buesker said.
Guests at Friday’s event were invited to take a tour of the center’s buildings at 4501 Cathedral Oaks Road, with each room showing volunteers working with disabled students.
In one room, Jerry Corinsh, a monk from the Capuchin monastery who volunteers at the center, gave students a lesson on how to dance the two-step to “New York, New York.” In another room, an amateur band gave its own rendition of “Sweet Caroline.”
For the center’s most disabled, including a 35-year-old woman named Gita who has not developed mentally beyond that of a 6-month-old infant, the Snoezelen room was a piece of Alice in Wonderland brought to Santa Barbara.
Inspired by a theory developed in Switzerland, spinning lights, bubbles rising through plastic tubes filled with water, an image of butterflies being projected onto the wall and a massaging pillow are meant to induce sensory overload in severely underdeveloped minds, according to Alpha employee Nellie Just.
“If you overload the senses of someone, it allows them to pick up more than they could before,” Just said.
All disabled people who come to the Alpha Resource Center are required to have some goal to give them a purpose and keep them active. For some, this can be as simple as remembering to wash their hands every day, Just said.
Olson said many of the center’s business partners in the community are amazed at the contributions of the disabled workers they employ.
“Paid employment is important because they live on pretty limited budgets,” Olson said of the center’s clients. “Making ends meet at the end of the month is pretty challenging,”
Mark Pasquini said he has secured multiple part-time jobs through the center, such as delivering meals to senior citizens for Meals on Wheels and sweeping at the Boys & Girls Club.
Jesse Simon, 30, serves as a mentor for other young people with Down syndrome and works at the center’s advocate outreach program.
“If I didn’t have Alpha, I’d be at home,” she said. “I don’t want to be at home. I want to be out in the community being productive, having a purpose in life and advocating.”
The Alpha Resource Center’s open house was sponsored by Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf of Goleta.
— Noozhawk intern Daniel Langhorne can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
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