Provide Scholarships for Adults with Disabilities

You might think that people with disabilities aren't very good at yoga or zumba. That's okay. Many people don't understand at first.

Doesn't your wheelchair-- I mean, how do you...?

And sure, that's understandable. Let us explain a little of what being a SPARC member looks like.

For starters, we are completely inclusive. If we're doing an activity, everyone who wants to gets to participate. We've rigged up buttons to camera shutters so that someone who can't move their limbs can take a picture. Or with a helper we practice guided arts or even art when someone's hand helps one of ours. 

People sitting around in a depressing TV lounge watching forty year old reruns is the image a lot people have of our lives. The truth is much more fun and exciting.

Our artwork has appeared on the National Mall's Christmas trees and in exhibits throughout Northern Virginia. Our We Are Not Wallflowers art exhibit opens this month. 

For physical activity  we practice adapted yoga and adapted zumba. You can absolutely do either in a wheelchair or if you're not sighted or if you have any other difficulties. That's the adapted part of the activity. We believe so much in inclusion that it guides everything that we do.

All SPARC members participate in deciding lifelong learning skills to engage with in the clubhouse. Check out this list from last week:

• Cooking with more herbs and less salt
• Blogging
• Making a radio
• Life skills
• and some of our favorite recreational activities like Whiteboard Mysteries and Family Feud.

We give back to the community too. One of our favorite activities is taking bulk produce that a local church collects and portioning it into individual family sizes so they can be distributed in a local food bank. That's important work in our community because we all love carrots, but no one wants fifty pounds of them at any time!

We need you to help us now.

With summer over, we are back to full time schedules in our four locations. We need support from you to buy:

1. Yoga and Zumba instructor time
2. Art supplies
3. Metrorail passes to attend museum field trips
4. And a desperately needed printer in our Arlington location.

We'll share pictures and stories about those and other activities in our next report. Until then, we'll say thank you for everything you do to help us. We hope that you enjoy these pictures from our clubhouses.