Meeting at the Arc
This reporter made a visit to Gracie Eshilian in the Woodruff Convalescent Center, and found her sitting comfortably in the new wheelchair that our Rotary Gracie Fund bought for her. Wheeled by Johnny Croshaw and escorted by Rich Strayer, Gracie and I went out onto the airy front porch for some pictures.
“Tell everyone I love them,” Gracie says. She especially wants to thank Shirley Johnson for bringing her not once, but twice, an English Trifle, which is a formidable dessert. And thanks to Julie Peterson too, for huge helpings from her R&J Southern Home Cooking Restaurant.
If you were able to get to the ARC on Woodruff for our last meeting, you can get to Gracie. She has been residing in an expansive convalescent home just four miles farther south on Woodruff, in the city of Bellflower. In her shared room she has the bed by the window, from which she can see a little private garden with lavender plants in spiky spring bloom. Go see Gracie or call her, on this new number: 562 896-2980.
Speaking of the Arc, executive director Kevin MacDonald and his staff welcomed us to a delicious Mexican luncheon for our meeting there, in the Reagan Banquet and Conference room. Before our tour of the classrooms and production assembly facility, Kevin showed us some pictures of the year in review.
Since we last visited, there have been upgrades in the computer rooms and in the model rooms for learning how to live outside the home, in an assisted situation. There is a new façade on the assembly building.
The Arc has festive events every month for its clients, like their recent St. Patrick’s Day luncheon, the day before our meeting there. They celebrated New Year’s Eve with a daytime dinner too, so everyone could get home safely before dark. Not a bad idea for the rest of us.
New happening last year was the purchase by the Arc of Just-a-Buck, a franchise dollar store in Long Beach. By purchasing the store, the Arc can ensure jobs for people for disabilities. As a local non-profit, The Arc trains and employs their clients for a retail enterprise – a first in our community.
The big yearly event is the Arc Walk for Independence, which will have been celebrated a few days ago, by the time you read this. Over five thousand people came last year to Stonewood Center Mall, to participate and show their support by raising money for people born with intellectual or developmental difficulties. There are high school marching bands, colorful commemorative tee shirts, and this year, the Clipper Girls.
Walkers can choose between the one-mile or the three-mile course, and everyone who crosses the finish line gets a burrito breakfast from Acapulco Restaurant. It’s more of a stroll, actually, and the Arc clients will participate too. They’ll be glad to walk hand in hand with us Rotarians.
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