Friday, February 19, 2010
New possibilities
Those with disabilities have a new way to connect with the community.
Photo courtesy of Lloyd Enoch
Members of the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke and the newly organized Phoenix Star Aktion Club gathered Jan. 25 for the Atkion Club's chartering ceremony.
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When the newly organized Phoenix Star Aktion Club received its charter from the Kiwanis Club of Roanoke on Jan. 25, it became only the third such club in Virginia for people with disabilities.
Inclement weather has kept the 21 members from meeting since they received the charter, but Steve Garrison, the club's president, is looking forward to the first meeting.
It's scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Monday at the Blue Ridge Independent Living Center on Williamson Road.
For Garrison, the Aktion Club is a continuation of his participation at Phoenix Star Clubhouse, a community-based program of the Brain Injury Resource and Development Center Inc. in Southeast Roanoke.
The Aktion Club, he said, will "give me an opportunity to mingle and make me feel useful."
Kiwanian Linda Wyatt proposed that the Kiwanis Club and Phoenix Start Clubhouse form an Aktion Club.
Wyatt, a former Roanoke City Council member and retired schoolteacher, is familiar with the brain injury support system and knew of the work of the clubhouse.
"I thought it would be a perfect match" for the Kiwanis Club, Wyatt said during a telephone interview.
Aktion clubs give people with disabilities "a chance to give back to the community and to kind of lead a normal life like you and I would," Wyatt said.
"These are people who want to be a part of their community and give back in a positive and constructive way," Wyatt added. "They don't dwell on their disabilities ... they focus on their possibilities."
Garrison, 53, incurred brain and physical injuries in a vehicle crash nearly 29 years ago.
At Phoenix Star Clubhouse, he said, "we go out and volunteer for the SPCA; put price tags on clothes to be sold by agencies that help the poor and needy, and we work at the food bank in Salem."
"I'm hoping the new Aktion Club will open up new avenues of serving the community" said Juanita Thornton, executive director for Phoenix Star Clubhouse. "The clubhouse is a place where people with brain injuries can come to relearn work and social skills."
Phoenix Star Clubhouse has partnered with Star City Coffee to develop and sell a coffee blend for $10 a bag. The clubhouse also is selling a CD of the original music of John Weems for $12 and a $5 pack of notecards made from prints by Mark Shelton, an area artist with a brain injury.
For more information or to join either the Phoenix Star Aktion Club or the Phoenix Star Clubhouse, call 761-5421; e-mail jthornton@phoenixstarclubhouse.org; or visit www.phoenixstarclubhouse.org.
