Supporting adults with disabilities to enjoy active and fulfilling lives.

Members of Goodwill’s Adult Day Services programs are creative, outgoing and very fashionable. Our annual TAP the Potential Fashion Show in October is a coveted opportunity for participants to show off these traits for an audience of peers and other individuals from around the community.

With the help of Milwaukee County’s Office of Persons with Disabilities, Goodwill hosts this event at our Community Opportunities Club North, which is located at Wil-O-Way Underwood Park in Wauwatosa. The fashion show features models from other agencies including Easter Seals and Adult Day Services of Southeast Wisconsin. The TAP the Potential Fashion Show is just one of many events Goodwill hosts during National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

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The Goodwill Community Opportunities Club (COC) North offers a variety of activities to involve participants. One club, though, Mileage Club, consistently has the most people participating. Mileage Club is an optional activity for participants to be part of and was created to fill the need for an active lifestyle for the participants. Each day, the members go outside and walk around the wonderful 1/5-mile track behind COC North. The group chooses a destination within the United States and collectively works toward walking the miles to that destination.

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The African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” suggests that a child does not grow just within the four walls of their home and just with care from their parent(s) but rather, a child grows within their community (their village) and in a social world with input, tools and understanding from the village as a whole.

This adage translates well in reference to the participants who receive adult day services at the Waukesha Community Service Center.

Goodwill alone cannot provide all the necessary, expected and deserved supportive services for our participants. We must build partnerships, nurture relationships and utilize supports from our community-at-large. Without the village, our day service program would not flourish as we do, would not be the recognized leader in adult day programming, and would not be able to support the growth of our participants in their independence and goals.

Contributions from our community have impacted our program and participants in ways that words cannot begin to describe. Donations from corporations and individuals have allowed us to provide special enhancements such as weekly music therapy, community outings to museums, restaurants and performances, as well as equipment and supplies that bring excitement and creativity to the lives of our participants.

In the past several months, our program has been able to purchase an arcade basketball game, a manicure table, couches, art supplies and games. We have been generously accommodated by local establishments and have had the opportunity to showcase the talents of our participants at community businesses.

The participants at the Waukesha Adult Day Service Center continue to grow and be inspired thanks to the acknowledgement of their community, and the tools and resources made available to them.

It truly does take a village and for your input, resources and understanding, we thank you. Read More

At the Center for Work and Training in Greendale our Clubhouse participants’ favorite things about the Fourth of July are the parades and the cookouts. With that in mind, staff and participants sought a parade of their own so every participant could have their own chance to march in a parade.

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At Goodwill we are Inspired By People, we believe in the Power of the Whole and that Results Matter.  We use these Guiding Principles everyday to guide our work, which allows us to focus on our mission. And these Guiding Principles were very evident at Goodwill’s Community Opportunities Club (COC) South located at the Goodwill Center for Work and Training — Southwest Campus in Greendale.

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The Community Opportunities Club (COC) West located in Waukesha was excited to host the first “All Center Mother’s Day Craft Event” on May 10. Our participants and staff had quite a bit of prep work to do prior to the big event! COC North graciously donated 50 white bags to us and the COC West team began to assemble them together the day before. Each bag included a flower pot (shaped as a teacup or a teapot) that our participants would be able to decorate, plus many other items.

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Music has often been called a universal language, and that remains true for our staff and participants in Day Services at Goodwill’s James O. Wright Center for Work and Training (JOW) in Milwaukee. Whether they are playing instruments, dancing and moving during our adaptive fitness classes, or belting out their favorite standards during our karaoke contests, Day Services clients are drawn to the rhythms and lyrics of rock, R&B, jazz, pop, classical and gospel music. For our staff, music is a way to share common interests and engage participants with disabilities regardless of physical, cognitive or communication barriers in meaningful programming.

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As part of our “new year, new you” programming, Goodwill Community Opportunities Club(COC) North felt it was time to brush up on our healthy living skills. Recreation Assistant Joey James realized some of our participants were coming in without having a chance to apply deodorant or brush their teeth, so he came up with a solution: Hygiene Club!

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Participants in the Goodwill Center for Work and Training – Southwest Campus (GSC) Day Services and Clubhouse programs came together to spread the love on Valentine’s Day.  Recreation assistants LeAnn LeBlanc, Kelly Wood and Catrina Brooks worked for several days to create a very special event for each and every program participant.

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What is the Goodwill Way? Well, it’s how we do things and how we define who we are—basically it’s how we work together at Goodwill. We have these things called guiding principles that help direct our actions. They are: Inspired by People, Power of the Whole and Results Matter. These three principles are at the heart of what we do each and every day.

These are new concepts for all of us; staff and participants alike. Looking for ways to simplify and recognize these guiding principles was important to us. Over the course of several participant council meetings, we tackled each principle and determined how we interpret it and what we can do to demonstrate our knowledge of it.

Participants, with the help of staff, simplified the guiding principles to make better sense of them:

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