What Does Volunteering Mean to YOU?

Hey folks, today I'll be talking a little bit about the art and culture of volunteering.  I believe the first time I ever volunteered was when I was 16 and was asked to volunteer a few hours a day during the summer to enlighten 13 year olds in whatever topic I choose. I soon discovered that 13 year old kids were definitely up for a bigger challenge than I was prepared for, but I was willing to volunteer my time to bring them enlightened topics.  So I thought... and thought.  I was struggling every day until I remembered a film about discrimination, Nazis, terror and acceptance.  Bingo!  Showed the film and had lively discussions about what we had seen, drew art depicting some of the scenes and what we thought about life in general.  What a great feeling.

Anyway, later in life, I walked into Live Oak Theatre to see an old friend of mine’s show “Seekers of the Fleece” performed by Bobby Bridger.  The moment I walked into the theatre, I knew I was home.  I talked with the House Manager about volunteer opportunities. Fate was to offer me the life long chance to do props for Live Oak Theatre, Capitol City Playhouse, Zilker Hillside Summer Musical, & Zach Scott Theatre. Now, I just usher or do whatever I can to promote theatre in Austin.

What I have I learned by being a volunteer?  Volunteering should come from the desire to support the organization and it’s mission.  There are many reasons to volunteer:  to meet people, see shows for free, enjoy parties, attend ballets and operas.  These are all great perks, but my approach is to always support the mission of the organization that I volunteer.  Volunteering should mean gladly participating in the more undesirable tasks as well as the rewarding pleasurable ones.

Having been on both sides of the volunteering experience, as a volunteer and a volunteer coordinator, I know these valuable tools can make a wonderful volunteer experience:

1. Be Flexible!
I can recall a crazy instance when the caterers didn’t show up for an opening night show reception. Our volunteer coordinator had us setting up tables with table cloths, champagne glasses, and running over to a large grocery store to get cheeses, crackers, desserts, meats etc. and scurrying back and setting up everything with flowers, and cups and plates, napkins.  We were set up by the end of the show.  Everyone knew what had to happen and we did what it took.  Adapting and showing a happy face to all the patrons never letting on that all this was going on in the background.  We were so proud.

2. Energy
Sometimes you can be tired from work or other circumstances before you arrive for your volunteering assignment.  Remember that anyone coming to where you are volunteering has had outside events happening to them as well, and you may be the first person they see.  The goal of volunteering is to bring something to the experience.

3. Imagination and Creativity
Volunteering doesn’t need to be a solemn or straining thing.  When individuals use their talents, passions, and humor they bring life into the tasks at hand.  Allow yourself to dream; bring your
creativity into whatever you do because it leaves your own personal and sincere mark.

4. Integrity
Keeping your commitments, showing up when you say you will.  You represent the organization
you are volunteering with.  You are entrusted with their image, and the work they do as well as what you do with them.  This is keeping your word and doing what you say you will do.

5. Sacrifice/Selflessness
Volunteering again is giving of your time freely, bringing your time and energy to a cause, an organization because you want to.  I know that sometimes I have felt tired and worn thin because of maybe too many demands at times.  Examine your motives, the rewards or feelings you get at the end of the experience.  Sometimes it does mean sacrificing a bit especially when you are overwhelmed or under challenged.

I have given some tips on good volunteering, BUT on the flip side as a volunteer coordinator, I know that treating the volunteers well is so very important because it is their time, they are here to learn about your organization and what you all do.  Always try to engage them, and plan out their experience so they will want to return and find fulfillment in the mission.  After all, they came to you wanting to donate time as well as their talents to your organization.  Treat them well!

Get to know our Executive Director, Celia Hughes!

Hello everyone.  I’m Celia Hughes, Executive Director of VSA Texas. I am happy to introduce myself and look forward to interacting with you in-person, on-line and in the cloud.   So, here’s a little information about me.  As an artist and an advocate, I wasn’t on the front lines of the disability movement in the 70’s and 80’s, but I was working in the trenches, and since a very young age, have dedicated my life to working alongside people with disabilities to improve quality of life and remove barriers to success.

My first summer at Clover Patch Camp! That's me in the middle of the back row.

I started out by creating the arts and crafts program at Clover Patch Camp, run by Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital in Schenectady, NY. Clover Patch was the first camp of its kind in upstate New York, and my early experiences there planted the seed of realization of what was happening then and what could be possible in the lives of people with disabilities.

Armed with a degree in Speech Pathology and a dream to find a life in the arts, I set out. Through my work in theater, television, film, art galleries, catering, school classrooms and youth leadership organizations at local, state and national levels, I have been able to blend my passion for the arts and my commitment to civil rights. In 1999, the door to opportunity opened and I walked through to assume the leadership position at VSA Texas.

VSA was founded 40 years ago by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith and was known for many years as Very Special Arts.  Ambassador Smith’s vision was to bring the reformative power of the arts to people who, for no fault of their own, were locked away in institutions or hidden behind closed doors. Thankfully, now, much of that has changed.

But the work of VSA Texas continues to recognize that throughout the ages, artists, scientists, mathematicians – people with disabilities – have led the way toward a better world.  As President Kennedy once reminded us, “Art calls forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race, religion, wealth or color” and I would now add, disability. This is the mission of VSA Texas: to bring everyone into the universal experience of the arts through employment, education, participation, and just plain fun!

On October 21, at the 2014 Lex Frieden Employment Awards ceremony in Dallas, I was awarded The Governor’s Trophy by the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities. The Governor’s Trophy is awarded to the person who has achieved the highest success in enhancing the empowerment and employment of Texans with disabilities. The Governor's Trophy recognizes long-term commitment and outstanding efforts at both the community and state level. It is an amazing honor to be recognized by your peers for the work that you do. One could get a little complacent. But don’t worry. It won’t stop me from continuing to work every day to build inclusive, arts-inspired communities, where people with and without disabilities envision, create, dance, play and sing their stories, out loud and proud!

I hope you will join me, and the Board and staff of VSA Texas, on this unique and transformative journey.

Big Brother OMOD Returns to El Paso

Good evening ardent followers of VSA Texas' blog! It's Eric, your friendly OMOD project coordinator and connoisseur of El Paso's finest tacos. I have another tale to tell you of the Sun City:

After launching our OMOD program in El Paso the last weekend of August, I observed the next four class meetings from the comfort of my home in Austin through the modern magic of FaceTime, a video calling application, courtesy of Apple, that enables Mac users to video call other Mac users – or users of iPads, iPhones, or iPods – through built-in FaceTime cameras and Wi-Fi connections. For me, this meant every Saturday morning I would cozy up to my MacBook Pro laptop at my dining room table with a cup of coffee and regrettable slices of leftover pizza, await the video call from our writing and speaking coach, Gerri, and then observe the three-hour class like the next episode of an action-packed miniseries. My face would appear on the screen of Gerri's MacBook Pro resting on a table in the corner of the Region 19 Education Service Center conference room, where the OMOD class was held.

Though I like to think my facial expressions were a tad less scornful and intimidating, I still imagine I must have appeared somewhat like 1984’s Big Brother: lurking quietly in the corner, taking fastidious notes. But overall, I found my FaceTime observation to be a wonderful experience of watching the participants morph and grow over the course of the six-week session and seeing how the trainers interpreted our curriculum and modified it to suit the new environment and the new group of participants. More importantly, FaceTime gave me the opportunity to be present, to note the specific problems and successes, and to give the trainers instant feedback both during and after each class.

I returned to El Paso with Caleb, my trusty travel attendant and also a passionate connoisseur of tacos, for the final class and showcase on Saturday, October 4th. We met our project partner, Rick, our trainers, Christine, Madeline, and Gerri, and our newly trained self-advocate speakers at the Transitions to the Future Conference for Parents at the Region 19 Head Start Center, where the showcase was held as one of the conference’s breakout sessions. The showcase room filled up quickly, and soon our speakers were presenting their stories to an audience of more than 60 people.

Our speakers shared a variety of stories on themes ranging from education, adventure, and friendship, to self-discovery, romance, and the importance of listening. Every story was well received and garnered a wave of applause from the audience.

Alina shares her story about how she dealt with an unwanted crush.

Paul talks about his experiences in Junior ROTC.

Jesus shares his story about skydiving.

After the showcase, I spoke with the mother of a young son with autism who told me how much the stories moved her and made her feel more confident about her son’s future. Hearing that really reinforced in me the importance of our project: writing and sharing stories about the common hopes, dreams, successes, and struggles of people with disabilities allows people without disabilities to see how alike we all are and also gives hope and strength to other people with disabilities and to family members of people with disabilities who may still be trying to find their way.

The next stop for our El Paso self-advocate speakers will be the 2014 “Our Lives” Disabilities Conference and Service Providers Expo, sponsored by the Volar Center for Independent Living, which will be held Thursday, October 30th, from 8am-5pm at the Camino Real Hotel (101 South El Paso Street, El Paso, TX 79901). Stay tuned for updates at http://www.vsatx.org/omod.html.

And last but not least, take a look at these incredible tacos from the Rainbow Fountain!

Caleb helps me arrange my tacos for proper consumption.

Have you heard of Zach Bilbo yet? You Will!

Have you heard of Zach Bilbo yet? You will!

Zach Bilbo is a 15-year-old boy who attended our two-week-long animation internship this summer.   With dreams of someday making a career in animation, Zach submitted an extensive application for the internship complete with character, storyboards, and comics.  We knew that he would really benefit from our teachers, and invited him to join us.

During the two-week internship, although Zach was somewhat reserved, he was incredibly hardworking and approached every project with thoughtfulness and creativity.  He excelled in the many different domains of animation, including simple flipbook animation, stop-motion, and Claymation.  Many of the volunteers had little experience with the different types of techniques, so Zach proved to be a great asset in providing assistance and support for the less experienced interns.  Zach’s final animation reel was both innovative and humorous, combining the new skills he learned during the internship with his previously developed characters

So, when Project Coordinator of our Opening Minds, Opening Doors program, Eric Clow, and our Artworks Director April Sullivan wanted to create a character to become the “face” of OMOD and reflect the spirit of the program on different documents, we immediately thought of Zach.   Zach took the opportunity and ran with it, designing a vast array of new and creative characters from which we could choose.  We were so pleased with his submissions and decided that we couldn’t pick just one; hence the birth of “Maudie” and “Opie!” (Named by Zach, of course). 

 

We’ve now hired Zach to draw these characters in a variety of poses and situations to go along with different programs, and couldn’t be more pleased with what he’s come up with.   Both of these characters have distinct personalities and add a whole new dimension to the OMOD program.  We're so happy to have Zach's help with this project, and hopefully contribute to his first steps on the way to making a career in animation a reality.  Congratulations Zach! You're awesome!

What do you think of Zach’s work? What should Maudie and Opie be doing next? Let us know in the comments!

Distinguished Artist Veterans

Hi VSA Texas Community! It’s April here, and I wanted to tell you more about one of my favorite programs I am working on called Distinguished Artist Veterans. This is our veteran services and we started it in 2009. It has been growing steadily over the years and I am really excited about the way it is headed.

We started Distinguished Artist Veterans as an art exhibit featuring works by Texas Veterans with disabilities. That exhibit became an annual event and our next one is coming up in November/December with a display by 22 veteran artists at The Institute of Texan Cultures in San Antonio. We will have some great work on display, including this piece Holy F@!#ing Brain Damage by Jenna Paige Donnell.

  

Jenna is currently in the Texas Army National Guard. She says, “This acrylic/ mixed medium painting is an ode to Traumatic Brain Injury, and the many wounded vets with combat related, or induced Multiple Sclerosis, that others and myself have had to endure. The title is an ironic statement of the actual problem that so many veterans are now being faced with. I came up with the concept to raise awareness to this under stated problem.” If you are in San Antonio I highly recommend you attend this exhibit. The opening reception will be Thursday, November 6^th from 6-8 pm.

I really enjoy putting together this exhibit and meeting new artists and helping all of our veteran artists gain access to the resources they need to further their careers in the arts. Did you know that there is a movement nationwide recognizing the importance of the arts to our military and veteran communities? Through extensive research we found that many arts and veteran service organizations are rallying around our troops to make sure that they have the power of the arts as a tool to express themselves creatively.  For those who have endured the harsh conditions of military conflicts, music, writing, performance or visual art can be a welcome outlet.

Our involvement in this effort has gained us many new partnerships with organizations such as the VA and their National Veterans Creative Arts Festival. We help host the local competition here at the Austin VA Outpatient Clinic.

The Telling Project is another great organization that provides personal storytelling and theater for veterans. They are hosting a performance in San Antonio at The Tobin Center October 1-5 and then in Austin at the B Iden Payne Theater, University of Texas October 25, and at the Austin Playhouse November 7-9.

The Veteran Artist Program is hosting their annual Arts and Service Celebration in Austin from October 19-25. This is a great opportunity for veterans interested in the areas of visual art, performing art, writing, film, and new media to network with professionals in the field. Registration is open now at www.artsandservice.org

I am really excited about the great opportunities being made available for our Texas veteran artist community and look forward to being involved in many more to come!

OMOD Goes to El Paso

Hey Folks! This is Eric, your Opening Minds, Opening Doors (OMOD) project coordinator and resident birthday dude. I have been tasked with blogging about our recent OMOD program launch in El Paso, so here goes:

On Thursday afternoon, August 28th, I flew to El Paso with Celia, our OMOD project director, and Caleb, my Mexican-American, punk-rock personal care attendant of four months. Despite my ever-present distrust of airport wheelchair handling, we arrived safely in El Paso, and I got my wheelchair back from under the plane without any serious problems (of course, I only fly with my back-up wheelchair, so it’s not like I even give the airlines a chance to break my chair.) The three of us settled in nicely at the Radisson Hotel just outside of the El Paso Airport. After enjoying an appetizer of chips, salsa, and popcorn at our hotel’s happy hour, Caleb and I embarked on a journey to El Chihuahuita’s Tacos Al Pastor, just a few miles down Montana Avenue.

Caleb and I had such great faith that the little hole-in-the-wall of a place would deliver us to the taco promised land that when we saw it was not accessible, we decided to just get our food to go and take it back to the hotel. Upon our return, we set ourselves up at a patio table in the hotel courtyard, spreading out our chicken fajitas, carne asada, barbacoa, and buche tacos on Styrofoam platters amidst three different salsas, charro beans, and Tecate by the can, and feasted like kings of the desert. After eating, we made our way to the hot tub, where we told each other wild tales from our childhood and let our stomachs digest the tacos.

The next afternoon, Celia and I made our way across Airway Boulevard to the Region 19 Education Services Center, where we met with Rick Razo, our warm, white-bearded project partner and rockin’ director of the El Paso del Norte Youth Leadership Forum, and prepared for our OMOD El Paso Training of Trainers. In addition to Rick, we also trained three lovely graduate students from the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces, who will serve as our trainers for our first El Paso class: Christine, our writing instructor, Madeline, our public speaking instructor, and Gerri, our coach and general classroom assistant. They were all excited to be a part of our project and passionate about our ultimate goal: to train and support people with developmental disabilities statewide to write and share their stories at conferences and other events.

In this initial training, we guided the ladies through all of the necessary paperwork and read through our six-week class curriculum with them. Then, Rick acquainted us all with the facilities of the Education Services Center, a building with innumerable circuitous hallways and keycard-swipe locked doors, much like the Pentagon. As a wheelchair-user and tech nerd, I was most excited that each classroom was spacious and equipped with a computer, projector, screen, and booming speaker system as well as both a high-quality handheld and wireless lapel microphone. After the training, we reunited with Caleb, and soon we were off to nearby Dominic’s Italian Restaurant for yet another feast before heading to bed early.

Caleb and I awoke before dawn Saturday morning and rolled downstairs for a power breakfast of burritos and coffee. We rendezvoused with Celia and drove to the Volar Center for Independent Living, the location of our first OMOD class. Here, we met our fabulous group of seven participants (see the photo below), all active leaders in the El Paso del Norte Youth Leadership Forum. Being a former delegate and peer counselor from the Youth Leadership Forum in California, I was struck by how similar this El Paso group was to the group with which I had previously been involved. The participants here exhibited the same kind of compassion, camaraderie, and earnestness as those I knew in California. They were all eager for advocacy, change, and speaking up.

Pictured above is our rock star lineup of participants and instructors.

Back row, from left to right, is Paul, Jamie, Jesus, Madeline, Stephanie, Christine, Gerri, and Rick.

Front row, from left to right, is Alina, Roxana, Roxela, and myself.

Christine and Madeline led the participants through the usual first class activities, including an informal interview activity, a big group brainstorm using the phrases “Open Minds,” “Open Doors,” “Closed Minds,” and “Closed Doors” to generate a variety of topics for stories, and individual writing responses.

Roxela dictates her story to Gerri.

In the last half-hour of class, the participants shared their writings, a beautiful mixture of heartfelt stories covering a broad range of topics from “listening” and “diversity” to “opportunity” and “preparedness.” Of course, there was room for improvement in these self-advocate speakers – as there always is – but I know that I was not alone in my excitement to work with such an impassioned and enthusiastic group of participants.

Jesus shares his story with the class.

Then, Saturday night, Celia, Caleb, and I drove out through the desert to eat at the legendary Cattleman’s Steakhouse at Indian Cliffs Ranch. While waiting for a table, we wandered around the ranch in search of an appropriate backdrop for a group selfie, but instead we found a multitude of ranch animals, including rabbits, peacocks, goats, longhorns, bison, horses, llamas, an ostrich, and a donkey.

Rabbits!

Llama!

Ostrich!

After viewing the photographic evidence, Caleb insisted that my true spirit animal is a donkey. Though I’m not sure I agree outright with his statement, I can say that I felt an uncanny closeness with the donkey; I seemed to understand his sadness as well as he understood my own.

And of course, here is the donkey and I.

Do you think we're connected in some deep, cosmic way?

Our wandering came to an end when my name was announced over a loudspeaker indicating that our table was ready, and I raced back to secure it. We then enjoyed a hearty dinner of steak and bottomless pineapple coleslaw, ranch beans, and rolls. For a moment, I looked contentedly over the table full of food and felt completely at peace with the world. There’s nothing quite like a good, hearty meal to make everything feel all right. I know Caleb and Celia must have felt the same.

As Celia drove us back to the hotel, Caleb and I drifted to the border of consciousness, satiated and calm. I gazed through the windshield at the city lights ahead and wondered where El Paso ended and Ciudad Juarez began. Celia told me that Juarez glowed blue because the streetlamps there were neon and that wherever I could see a blue glow, I would be looking at Juarez; almost everything else would be El Paso. I tried hard to see the difference, and I’m not sure I did, but I do remember thinking about how magical and interconnected everything seemed to be. I imagined the future of our El Paso program, the stories that our self-advocates would write, the lessons they would learn and the lessons they would share, the ways they might change or grow as I have grown through my own involvement in the program. I didn’t know exactly what the future held, but I was excited for it.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more OMOD project updates at http://www.vsatx.org/omod.html.