Yes, we are saying "Welcome Back!" again due to a temporary closure of the program due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This time, it was a couple of weeks as over half of us endured being infected, something we had avoided for over 2 years! Fortunately, almost everyone had mild to moderate symptoms, and we're all feeling much better now. The vaccinations and booster shots appear to have worked in lessening the effects of illness on us, and we are grateful!
We kept rolling along even though we didn't reopen the AoA for in-person sessions until Thursday. Here's a recap of our in-person days this week, and some other things that took place during our hiatus!
Monday, August 1
We heard from our master gardener friend Krafty Karen today. She was checking on everyone, but also wanted us to know that she wrote an article about the partnership between the master gardeners and the AoA. It's featured on the James City County Master Gardener's home page this month, and it's definitely worth checking out! Karen wrote about working with us, at the garden, but also included A LOT of details about what we do beyond the garden, and how our lessons, and harvest, carry over to our everyday activities. It is a fantastic article, and you'll want to check it out! Here's a link to the JCCMG homepage. From there, click on the article titled "Our Therapeutic Garden."
James City County Master Gardeners
You can also click on this picture for a direct link to the article! Thank you, Karen! It's an amazing summary of the fun, engaging, and very important partnership we enjoy with you and our many master gardener friends!
Saturday, August 6
While we were closed, Moose Patti and the Women of the Williamsburg Moose Lodge (WOTM) held their 7th Annual Charity Golf Tournament, and The Arc of GW and Arc of Abilities program are two of the beneficiaries! It was a great success, and we are very thankful to Patti and friends for the hard work and dedication they put into this FUNdraiser each year! We posted a special edition of the blog with more details on the tournament. If you haven't seen it, click the picture of the banner below it will take you there!
Most of us who had planned to attend the tournament remained in Covid isolation, but our buddy Patrick escaped being infected, so he was able to go as our representative! His mom, Sue, also went, and she was able to get pictures that we used in the special edition blog post. Thank you so much, Patrick and Sue!
Our Executive Director, Pam, was there, too. She always delivers special remarks on behalf of The Arc, and we know she conveyed our heartfelt appreciation to Patti and the WOTM. Thank you, Pam, for your participation. And again, thank you, Patti!!
Monday, August 8
On Monday, Carol tested negative and felt comfortable making a trip to the Williamsburg Botanical Garden with her son, David. Krafty Karen had contacted us and said the garden was lush! Yes, it is!!
Hi, David! Thanks for helping your mom harvest lots of cherry tomatoes. We will use them on Thursday when we make side salads for lunch! 🍅🍅🍅
Carol harvested cherry tomatoes, and also a huge bunch of basil. Guess what we're making on Thursday...yep, pesto! Thanks, Carol! And thanks, Krafty Karen, for alerting us to this harvesting need. We haven't been able to check the garden for a couple of weeks...😷
Tuesday, August 9 - We went virtual!
We had a Zoom session on Tuesday so we could catch up with some of our friends! It was nice to see them. Erik's camera had a glitch, but he could see us and we could hear him, so that was great!
We danced to Owl City's "When Can I See You Again?" (on THURSDAY!) and shared some of our favorite books since it was National Book Lovers Day. At the end, Liz requested we play a song in tribute to Olivia Newton-John, who passed away this week. Grease is a movie we like to play songs from during our dance warm up, so we ended our session with "Summer Nights." (We don't have a picture, but we heard Drew's parents, Andy and Donna, were dancing to it! 💖) Rest in peace, Olivia Newton-John. We will always enjoy your music. 🙏
Wednesday, August 10 - Another virtual day!
On today's Zoom session, we enjoyed a visit with Honey, Laura's guinea pig "nephew." Honey belongs to Laura's niece, Olivia, who is out of town this week. Laura is taking care of Honey. What a cutie!
Honey had everyone smiling! We learned from Laura and her mom that Honey is a boy, and they aren't sure how old he is. Olivia got him for her birthday in June. Laura's mom said boy guinea pigs are thought to be more cuddly!
We watched a video to learn more about guinea pigs. This is Jessi, whom we watch on other videos called "SciShow Kids" sometimes. It turns out that she owns a wildlife sanctuary in Montana, and she takes care of a lot of different animals and creates educational videos about them. Jessi has a herd of guinea pigs! We learned about the care and feeding of guinea pigs, and that they are very social animals.
Guinea pigs need to eat hay to keep their teeth sharp, but we also got to see Jessi make a beautiful salad for them! Earlier, Laura was feeding Honey some kale!
Thanks so much for sharing Honey with us, Laura! We had a good time learning about guinea pigs.
Thursday, August 11 - In-person at the AFCC!
Not everyone was back today, but most of us were. We wore masks to give everyone who was on different steps of the "Covid timeline" a chance to mask up for the extra days recommended after ending isolation. Thanks to our gang for doing such a great job keeping their masks on today! We're proud of you!
During our Covid closure, a couple of our families experienced the loss of a loved one. Nan's beloved sister, Mary Ann, passed away on August 4, and Patrick's beloved Pops passed away on August 6. Pops was Pat's stepdad, Kevin's, father. We wanted Nan and Patrick's family to know we care, and have them in our hearts and thoughts, so we made cards. 💙💙💙
Next, we eased into birthday party mode, as we intended to make up Nan's celebration, which was originally scheduled for July 29...the first day of Covid closure. Kate and Liz handled cupcake decorating, and Xavier created colorful birthday party napkin rings.
Drew, Erik, and Adia sliced and diced and put together beautiful side salads for our lunch. They used the fresh cherry tomatoes we planted with the master gardeners, which Carol harvested on Monday, and fresh cucumbers sent in by Nan and Gdad from their garden! 😋
We're pretty good at turning out tasty lunches, and today's was no exception! Nan said it was a wonderful lunch!
Of course, everyone looked forward to the cupcakes after lunch! Happy Belated Birthday, Nan! There is no way we wouldn't have made up your special celebration! We hope you enjoyed it...and thanks for helping us get it ready! 😉
We haven't forgotten how to sing! 🥳🎉🥳🎉
Or how to dance! For Nan's birthday, we played her favorite game, Jeopardy, so we called this the "Jeopardy Jig!"
Nan was happy when we ended the day with a fun game of Jeopardy! The questions weren't too hard, and we helped each other as needed. That's just how we like to play! Happy Birthday, Nan! We hope you enjoyed your belated birthday party!
Friday, August 10 - Still in-person!
It was another fun, but busy day at the Arc of Abilities! After our dance warm up, we wrote thank you notes to Kate's parents who were treating us to lunch today. Then, this group of decorators made sure our "thank you board" looked nice for the Thompsons' arrival later!
Meanwhile, this group went to the kitchen area to prep the Arc's September mailing. There are some fun activities Arc members can sign up for in September, and there are also some important updates in this mailing, so families, be sure to check the contents of the envelope!
With burgers and fries (baked by us) on the lunch menu, we needed to get in some movement! This group chose a fun workout video that was birthday themed! We were supposed to do it yesterday during Nan's party, but we did something else by mistake!
This group (that's Sam behind Adia) chose to walk laps in the hallway. We caught them coming around the corner and they were booking!
Our friend Kendall stopped by for a visit today! She is board member Adam Kinsman's daughter, and we last spent time with her when she volunteered the summer of 2019, before Covid disrupted so many things. She was a rising freshman back then! Now she's a rising senior at Jamestown High School in the Honors Program, and she will be teaching us environmental science next week for her Honors Project! Here's a link to the blog post from 2019 when Kendall last visited us. She, and we, were so young back then!
Other special guests we welcomed today were Kate's parents, Elizabeth and Mark. They treated us to burgers from Wendy's for lunch...so they were our BFFs today! As you saw, Elizabeth and Mark, everyone really enjoyed the burgers! Thank you so much for providing such a fun lunch for us today! 🍔🍔🍔
Elizabeth also brought us homemade peanut buttter cookies, and they were dee-licious!! Thanks, Elizabeth! We need your recipe! 😋😋😋
With a little extra time on a Friday afternoon, we watched an episode of Gilligan's Island. Of course, Kendall had never heard of it, but she thought it was silly and laughed along with our guys at Gilligan's antics!
Kendall had time to join us for yoga before she had to leave to go to her job at Ichiban Restaurant. When Kendall last visited in summer of 2019, we had an in-person yoga instructor. Today, we introduced her to our online teacher, Jaime!
We were taking it easy today, since we had to wear masks, and so many of us were recently recovering from Covid. Jaime's yoga can get active, and we didn't want to overdo it this week.
Even in our chairs, stretches feel good! We had yoga a little earlier today, too. That's because around 2:00 we welcomed TWO more SPECIAL visitors...
Becky and her granddaugther Emmy came to see us! We had not seen Becky in person since March of 2020, except for our brief visit with her at her front yard back in April when we delivered birthday cards and a casserole. We had not seen Emmy since the summer of 2019 when she was a junior volunteer with us!
Becky looked wonderful and was moving well, considering she broke her leg and a bunch of ribs in February. Becky said it felt so good to be out visiting us. We told her she's welcome anytime! Emmy is growing up so fast...she will be in 7th grade this year and is really excited to be playing on her school's volleyball team! She's excited for school to start, and is looking forward to a class trip to Europe next year! It was sooooo nice to catch up with them! 💙💚💛💜
Finally, don't forget to register for our 5k Run/Walk that is quickly approaching on October 1st. This is our largest FUNdraiser of the year, and our goal this year is to raise $75,000. As you know, the Arc of Greater Williamsburg is an organization that is on the move, and we're more vibrant now than ever! We created a team, Arc of Abilities, that you are welcome to join.
Registration is $35 per entrant until September 1, when it increases to $45. Arc clients can register for $20 using code ArcClients2022. We have in-person and virtual participation options this year, so everyone can support us! Lisa, Alexis, and Nan will be participating virtually from Newport, Rhode Island on October 1st, but Carol and the rest of our AmAzInG Arc staff will be at Williamsburg Landing for a joyful return to the 5k, live and in-person.
The 5k will be our Bette Faye's last Arc event as she will be starting a well-deserved retirement afterward. We hope that many, many of our Arc members and their families will be on hand at the 5k to celebrate Bette Faye and the incredible and lasting impact she has made on the Arc of Greater Williamsburg! 💜👏💛👏💚
Click the image below for a link to all the registration information.
Well, we may have only been in-person for two days this week, but we sure packed a lot into them! We're so happy to be back to the routine with our friends! We have a lot to look forward to next week...and we mean A LOT! Check out our schedule:
Tuesday: Masks are optional beginning today. We wore them last week to allow everyone who was infected to clear at least 5 days of "masking" after 5 days of "isolation."
Wednesday: Today we will welcome a new group of friends to visit with us: therapy dogs! Led by Caroline, whom we met recently with her pup Indy, several handlers and dogs are coming so we can read to them! 🐕🐶 We are excited about this new partnership! Kendall will also continue her environmental science lessons today. Lunch on your own (microwave available). It's going to be a busy day!
Thursday: BIG NEWS: We are welcoming Devin B. back today! He spent the summer on a vocational internship at W&M, and we have missed him. Welcome Back, Dev!
After we welcome Dev back we're going to see Mike at the Watermen's Museum, and introduce him to his fellow environmentalist, Kendall! The weather looks promising for being outside for a picnic by the river, so bring a bagged lunch. Skip dessert though, because it's National Ice Cream Pie Day and we'll have a treat when we return to the center! We may have time for a trolley ride and short walk, too. We'll return to the center in time for Kendall to continue with her lessons. Wear Arc shirts, please!
Friday: It's a Pet Supplies Plus work day, so wear your PSP shirts. It's also National Potato Day, so the Cooking Crew will be busy preparing a baked potato bar for lunch! We'll let Kendall finish her science lessons today (if necessary), and then we'll wrap up the week with yoga, so dress to stretch with your PSP shirts!
Next week is going to be great! We have so much to be thankful for.
Wishing everyone a wonderful week,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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