CLI Incorporated

P.O. Box 508

Norwalk, Ohio 44857

CLIsupports.com

419-706-5137

Week of April 7-11, 2025

Well, March Madness is over!  


Congratulations to Jimmy for being the only one to pick the men's champion - Florida.  


Congratulations to Matt for being the only one to pick the women's champion - UConn.


Thanks to everyone who participated! Hope to see you back next year!

It's Wii Bowling League Season again at the fancy new Norwalk Senior Enrichment Center!

Have you seen anyone from CLI do something that impressed you? Did we do anything that made you wish we hadn't?


Take 3 minutes and fill out a quick survey to tell us about it. There's a FREE Ohio Lottery Scratch Off ticket in it for you-- and we'll keep it confidential if you want us to.

CLICK HERE to tell us something that we're doing right -- or not!

Twins?

The Usual--

Welcome to our first mid-week newsletter. CLI started this online weekly update in 2020 when we were all isolated. It's been a reasonably useful form of communication, but I'd like to make it more informative-- both in terms of sharing pictures about what we've done and also in doing a little bit better forecasting what we've got planned for the week coming up. CLI strives to customize each person's experience according to their unique interests and ambitions as outlined in their ISP. We also strive to provide service in community integrated situations whenever possible. This is more than just locating services in the community, it means that we must build services so that individuals with DD are active, equal participants. Building connections takes time. This means if someone identifies that they want to volunteer for a certain non-profit, or take a certain class at the Rec Center, then CLI supports that individual for the whole series of scheduled volunteering or classes. People can't get to know you or miss you when you when you aren't there if you are a haphazard participant. This means that each participant knows what's on their personal schedule for the week, but we haven't really done a great job about sharing all of the many routine experiences-- or the less routine, special activities that happen before the fact.


We believe that choice is paramount. Everybody must be supported to make informed choices in ways that help them figure out their own short-term and long term costs/benefits for those decisions. CLI staff will always support our clients' choices, even when we don't agree with them. But we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't make sure that people fully understand what the consequences of a choice might be. Membership in a group has plusses & minuses. One easy example is for people that joined bowling teams last season. If you join a bowling team on a bowling league, people expect you every week. You can miss if you want, but those teammates and those league expect your money even if you don't show. And if you are flakey, or even worse, if you quit mid-season and refuse to pay your portion-- other members of that small bowling community are going to be mad at you. Another easy example is a personal health goal. CLI staff are not allowed to smack the soda out of your hand just because you told us you wanted to lose weight and/or better manage your diabetes-- but we can and should remind you what you told us your desired outcome was. One of the frustrating parts of adulthood is that very often 1 thing that we want is in direct conflict with something else that we want. One of CLI's goals this year as a provider is to do better helping you to identify your personal goals and then doing better to help you get those goals into your ISP and then doing what we can to support you to progress toward those goals.

I still think it's important to keep reminding our politicians that Medicaid funds our DD system. If DD-assigned Medicaid fund are cut or even if they are temporarily suspended, most providers like CLI will go out of business. I worry that sloppy politics might derail Ohio's DD system.


Again, I think that there are many opportunities to make the larger bureaucracy more efficient. But Ohio can't afford to make cuts to the relatively small percentage of this spending that currently makes it to the front lines. Saving tax dollars is a noble objective. However, I know that nobody wants to hurt people with DD. A careful, methodical approach is necessary. If you are willing to reach out, our local politicians are:

Senator John Husted

198 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

(202) 224-3353


Senator Bernie Moreno

B33 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

(202) 224-2315


Representative Jim Jordan

 2056 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

(202) 225-2676


Representative Robert Latta

 2470 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 201510

(202) 225-6405

Governor Mike DeWine

Riffe Center, 77 S High St 30th Floor

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 466-3555


Representative Kelly Deeter

77 South High Street, 13th Floor

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 466-9628


Representative D.J. Swearingen

77 South High Street, 13th Floor

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 644-6011


Senator Theresa GavaroneSenate Building

Capitol Square

First Floor, 138

Columbus, OH 43215

(614) 466-8060


Thanks! Have a great week!


John

What's new in Thrive?

We are in the middle of our cooking lessons. We just finished making tomato soup and grilled cheese. Of course we had to eat what we made. Everyone did a great job and we learned that we can use any kind of cheese and add special items to the sandwiches like ham, turkey, or bologna. We also saw how we could cut the sandwich up into small pieces and put them right into our tomato soup. Coming up we will be making brownies.  


Thanks to Kay and the Good Works Cafe staff for leading our Wednesday crew. Thanks to Pastor Wayne for the use of the kitchen at the UCC in Monroeville!


Our next few classes will focus on learning sign language. We have a few clients who sign and we all need to be able to communicate with each other so we will start small but hope to continue to build our vocabulary. We will be watching teaching videos, playing games, and labeling items all over the workshop. For anyone interested, here is the site we are using for our lessons. It's free!

lingvano


The Thrive classes have successfully grown their own sunflowers over the last 2 months. We started them from seeds the first week of February and each client was able to care and water their plant. Some grew over 8 inches tall. 


If you took your PLANT home, here are the care instructions for it!  


Sunflowers are quick growers. It really only takes 50-60 days for them to bloom. Being that we grew them in pots and not outside, they might take a little longer. 

Like most plants, if sunflowers were to get hit by a frost, they would not make it. 

It would be beneficial to leave the plants inside. If it hasn't bloomed or is still growing after Mother's Day, then you can plant it outside. The general rule of thumb is to wait to plant anything after Mother's Day in Ohio. 


Since the sunflowers will be left inside, they will continue to get bigger which means they will more than likely need a bigger pot. Any pot will do as long as it is bigger so the plants have more room to grow. We have already transplanted the sunflowers once before, so the clients should know what to do! 


Make sure you have enough soil for your bigger pot. They will need lots of sunlight, right next to a sunny window would be perfect. Water at least once a day. If the soil is still wet the next day, wait one more day to water again! 


That should be everything you need to know about how to care for your sunflower at home. 


We continue to look for business partners! The more exposure we can give our clients about the world of work the more productive we will all be! If you own a business and are interested or have a contact for us, please contact Julie.



Julie d'Aliberti

Community Access Facilitator

419-706-2635

Click here to email Haven to learn how to take a 5G iPad home

Want CLI to help you plan & do fun stuff with your friends?



Don't be shy!

Firelands Local LLC

Firelands Local Document Destruction hosted their 21st FREEE Community Shred Day this past Friday, March 28th. Stay tuned for more updates on how much material was destroyed & recycled.

James Johnson

james@firelandslocal.com

419-921-6400

The Good News from the Good Works Cafe--

CLI's Good Works Cafe offers a free community lunch every Friday afternoon at the Norwalk Reservoir,

staffed entirely by volunteers with DD made from food donated by OHgo and other

community partners!


Congratulations to our Celebrity Chef Ashley!

Question of the week


Q: How many days are CLI programs closed over Easter? Will you still provided rides to work for people who have jobs in the community?


A: CLI will be closed for Easter weekend on Friday, April 18th, and Monday, April 21st. ALL COMMUNITY EMPLOYMENT WILL STILL HAPPEN AS NORMALLY SCHEDULED!

Missed a newsletter? All of our old ones are achived on our website:

https://www.clisupports.com/latest-news

Shared Video(s) of the week:

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