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Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

Mike Tharp: Challenge of learning your left from right

Kathy and Barbara are leaning up against the wall of the gym at the Millennium Club. Sarah and some of their other friends from the Challenged Family Resource Center sit with them.

On the basketball court, Judy Villa, an aide at the center, rebounds balls for Frankie and two other people in their 20s.

A stranger in a bandanna headband holding a basketball squats down in front of Kathy and Barbara. He explains to them that to shoot a layup from the right side of the basket, you must jump off your left foot. From the left side of the basket, use your right foot. Got it? They both nod. The player dribbles out to demonstrate the move.

He comes back to the young women. OK, which foot do you shoot off of from the left side? "Left," they answer in unison. Nope. Right side, left foot. Left side, right foot. Got it? They think so.

Playing games at the Millennium is one of many daytime activities the center, located at 827 W. 20th St. in Merced, (www.challenge.mcoe.org) tries to provide for the 44 grownups who come there every day.

In Mariposa, the center serves 21. All of them are, in some way, developmentally delayed. They are subject to seizures. They have cerebral palsy. They are autistic. They are mentally retarded.

Because they're adults, they no longer qualify for any of the several services provided for babies, kids and teens similarly affected. Because they're adults, other people sometimes feel uncomfortable around them. Because they're adults, their needs have become different from those of youngsters.

But because they're adults, they also want to do -- not just watch.

So Judith Rehling, executive director, and her staff are constantly trying to think up activities and distractions and jobs that will engage their charges. Soccer in Rahilly Park. Working for an hour at the Wired Café downtown. Going to the gym. The library. Sack lunches in Courthouse Park.

In good weather like this week's, they can go out and do more. In bad weather, it's much tougher to find a place for them to even eat lunch.

The ages of the people who come Monday through Friday to the center range from 22 into their 60s. Most of the people who volunteer at the center are all parents of these or younger developmentally delayed people. Other Mercedians also volunteer. Rehling says the center needs more volunteers. She reckons the center serves 1,600 families in the county -- among some 7,000 families with special needs.

Rehling, who with her husband has adopted eight special-needs children (three died) as well as bearing two of her own, believes in the mainstream. Her whole outlook and behavior focus on getting and keeping these disabled grownups into "normal" society. "What do you do with a 20-year-old who has the mentality of a 9-month-old?" she asks. "You can't go to work."

That's where the center, which has been around for 16 years, steps in.

But like every other public service agency in the state, the Challenged Family Resource Center has had to cut back what it does because of bud get red ink. It's funded by the Central Valley Regional Center.

Rehling estimates the Merced center has lost $160,000. That meant she had to abandon a social recreation program that took the young people out on weekends. All funding for mental health is gone.

"A lot of the resources that help us stay intact as families" disappeared or are threatened, she says. "We're headed back to where they were put in institutions."

Unlike the Millennium Club, which accepts the center's clients several times a week, other places in the county are uncomfortable with them. "Many times doors are shut," Rehling says. "There's still discrimination."

So the people go where they're wanted -- and needed. Serving soup at the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul Society. Erasing graffiti. Mowing lawns at foreclosed houses.

The Merced County Office of Education under Superintendent Lee Andersen and Susan Coston has given strong support to the center. The Merced Mall welcomes them on field trips. Volunteers teach canoeing, dancing and computer skills and accompany them to the Fresno water slides or the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Several of them won ribbons in the Merced County Fair art contest.

But you can only go to the library so often during a 40-hour week. The center isn't licensed to keep its clients all day long on the premises, so after buses or parents drop them off, they have to find somewhere to go.

Picture this: You're mostly fit. You show some awareness. You feel certain longings. You want to be able to do some of what you see other people doing all around you, every day. Your life is a void.

And you have an IQ of 36.

That's why you go to the center.

"They're really good workers," says Laurie Johnson, a center staff member. "Because we're from the community, we spend a lot of time in the community."

Rehling agrees: "They're very compassionate. They see the best in people. They give unconditional love. They have a lot to give that's not measured in money or status."

She envisions a taco truck business for the center. A shop for recycled jeans. Maybe a victory garden like the ones grown during World War II. These people can do more than sweep and mop floors. The skill they learn one day may vanish the next. But their enthusiasm and energy never seem to flag.

The executive director intends to challenge the state's cutback of money. She worries that if she doesn't dissent, the programs she's lost won't be included in any refund cycle the state may undertake when times get better.

Meantime, two carloads of center folks show up the next day at the Millennium. This time they go to a room with stair-climbing and weight machines and treadmills. Everybody takes a turn -- working on their abs and biceps and wind. Two staff members work out with them.

Without the Challenged Family Resource Center, a lot of these Mercedians would be on a constant emotional treadmill. Because of what the center does, they can build mental and physical muscles in a lot of new ways.

They can learn their left from their right.

Executive Editor Mike Tharp can be reached at (209) 385-2456 or mtharp@mercedsun-star.com.