Provide Scholarships for Adults with Disabilities

I need to be blunt. Many of our group's participants are medically vulerable. So are their friends and families. We know that one of us with COVID-19 has a very different prognosis than someone who doesn't have those vulnerabilities.

And while we're thrilled with the way that we adapted to the pandemic's outbreak this spring, we now face the difficult task of making this our new normal well into 2021. And yes, we're aware that it could be even longer than that for us. 

Our days are filled with laughter and learning. And who knows, we can even open our virtual home to friends in other places if they could also benefit from participating with us at SPARC. It may not seem this way, but our video based meetings take much longer to plan and present. We're also increasing the number of activities in our lifelong learning schedule to offer diverse topics. It's not always easy adapting those for video sessions.

For example, we all know that we need physical activity to stay strong and mentallly fit regardless of the pandemic. We've been able to adapt Zumba classes via live video for all our club members regardless of their disability. We had already adapted the fun and fitness of Zumba to our world, but the complication of presenting that activity online via video is taxing our resources. After all, we didn't budget to become a video organization, and there are lots of technical expenses that we never imagined we would have to pay. We've incorporated lots of health and wellness activities for everyone and hope to make them available to even more participants this winter.

As part of our commitment to helping our community weather the pandemic, we are also offering adapted workouts with MercerFit. They’re specialists in adapting workouts for body and mind and presenting them in virtual settings. They’ve provided volume pricing for SPARC members for only $10 per session, an amazingly low cost for customized adapted sessions with top trainers.

As we reach November and our eighth month of being physically secluded, we hope that you can help us provide funds for adapted Zumba and MercerFit sessions for our members. We are thankful for your continuing support and hope that you will email us to arrange a time when you can visit us online. We love visitors!

Links:

• The SPARC Website

The COVID-19 has not changed our focus from inclusivity and having every person fully engage with their community. With many of our participants and their families medically vulnerable, this is a special challenge.

We’re still together every day with formal programming and informal club time just as if we were meeting in one of our four donated physical locations in Virginia. We have all become adept at video conferencing. Here is half the group gathered together on Spirit Day--as pirates!

We’ve also developed a new activity that everyone loves--adapted BINGO.

SPARC friend Adam uses a special switch to toggle the balls and then makes the call. We’re playing every Thursday night and have invited other organizations to play with us. Of course it’s free, but kind people often leave a donation.

Our games are played on Zoom and one of our followers donated their time to create a signup and BINGO card process on our website. Of course we would love to play in person, but since that’s not possible and no one had an adapted live game, we made our own.

We have big hopes for our new world especially because our donated space in local community centers will likely be used by local schools who are struggling to provide a safe physical environment for classes in the fall. Our video conferencing has been an amazing experience, but we’re going to need help from our supporters because of increased and unexpected expenses for things like webcams, tripods, and other unbudgeted fees.

The good news is that we would love for you to attend one of our Thursday night BINGO games. We’ve planned them through at least the end of July.

You can sign up free at https://sparcsolutions.org/bingo . We can’t wait to see you.

Links:

• SPARC Summer BINGO