John's usual--
CLI's cornhole season is officially over for 2021. Thank you everyone who showed up and made it so fun. Together we raised more than $2500 toward the Kenilee Lanes accessibility project-- and gave away more than $700 in prizes. We'll be moving indoors to Kenilee or 16 West over the dark months, but these 1X monthly events have been a fun & easy thing to pull off.
In the next couple weeks, we will be revamping our health-related policies. There is a lot going on with that right now-- the recent vaccine mandates, spikes in COVID rates, etc. We'll be shifting back indoors soon and we need to make sure that we're dealing with the problems-- that we know will pop up-- calmly and consistently. Drama and uncertainty are stressful for everyone.
There's no going back to pre-COVID. There are many communicable diseases and if we all get better at not sharing any of them-- that's a win. But, we've lost something too. I'm 54 and got to grow up in a world where you routinely shared whatever hose you were drinking out of and your parents would purposely drag you over to someone's house just so you could get the chickenpox from them. It wasn't all bad. But, that's my perspective as someone who didn't catch anything bad or have some sort of terrible response to the many high-grade fevers I had as a kid. I once got almost 40 stitches in my knee because our elementary school put asphalt under the swings so that kids wouldn't track mud inside. But, whether you loved them or barely survived them, the 1970's are over.
Our reality now is much more risk-averse and we can often arbitrarily fixate on one risk and completely ignore another. We don't have time to waste looking back. We need to push forward now. New obstacles require new solutions. I'm a big believer in incremental progress. The real work of lasting progress mostly means showing up every day and investing yourself in the drudgery that properly sets the stable foundation for the next leap forward. Without that platform building work, the next rung up is not possible. I'm so fortunate to work for a board, for a community, for employees, for clients, and others that are committed to progress.
Speaking of change-- James Johnson & I will be speaking to both the Norwalk Rotary & the Norwalk Kiwanis this week as part of our first action step in the business plan that we developed as part of the DODD Employer Transformation Grant. The end goal is for CLI to divest at least a majority stake in Firelands Local LLC to remove the conflict of interest for CLI to be both the provider and the employer to some of our clients. Full disclosure, Firelands Local LLC spends almost all the money it makes on its employees and operational costs-- which makes it not the most sexiest deal for potential investors, who are looking for a % return on their $ investment. However, we're hopeful that we can find another agency who wants to take advantage of the sheltered workshop, transportation & other accommodations to help other populations besides people with DD. Interesting times for sure. Sidenote-- Firelands Local has a contract to supply labor to MTD, so if you know any hard workers who are looking for an opportunity-- pass them onto me or to James.
That's all I've got for this soapbox. Keep those sleeves rolled up (but those hands clean)!
John
