Annual ADK Wine Tasting & Silent Auction

A fabulous time was had by all on Friday, November 7, at the annual ADK Wine Tasting & Silent Auction hosted by Sisters of the Alpha Delta Kappa Sorority. The women of ADK work tirelessly each year to prepare for this night. They work together to procure top of the line auction items, cook and serve delectable food items, and last but certainly not least, to support the Residents of The Mary Campbell Center.

All proceeds from the event support Resident education and technology, as well as upgrades to The Center's Snoezelen Room. Cheers and thank you to the Sisters of ADK for putting together another wonderful event.

IN THE HOUSE

Arts & Culture

The MCC Arts & Culture club is made up of seven members who meet bi-weekly to learn about famous artists, mediums, techniques, and the cultural impact of art around the world. The group is led by members of our Education and Occupational Therapy teams who develop, and lead lessons about a variety of art-related topics followed by hands-on activities related to the area of artistic focus.

November's theme was florals, specifically, the practice of floral arranging. Residents learned the importance of strategic placement, color schemes, and presentation. They then put their newly acquired knowledge to work in crafting fall-themed centerpieces to be displayed and sold at the ADK Wine Tasting & Silent Auction.

Congratulations to each MCC floral artist whose work was on display. The Mary Campbell Center is proud to celebrate your creative abilities!

A Very '70s 70th

Long-time Resident, Bill Bancroft, celebrated his 70^th birthday in flashy 70s disco style on Wednesday, November 5.

Bill spent his special day doing what he loves most…rocking out to the oldies, live with Eric Levy. A huge thank you to Bill’s sister, Carol, for working with us to organize a party everyone could enjoy. Bill soaked up the spotlight and made sure to share some as well as he and fellow Residents sang karaoke and enjoyed one another's company. Even staff joined in on the flashback fun, some sporting afros, sequins, platformed shoes, and flower power inspired clothing.

Cheers to 70 years of our man, Bill!

A Time to Give Thanks

Each year we gather together with Residents and their loved ones to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. The holiday season at The Mary Campbell Center is a magical time that we are grateful to share with our community. Thank you to all the families and friends that came out to celebrate with us; we're thankful for you.

Honoring Holiday Traditions

The holidays are all about tradition. There are traditional decorations, songs, gatherings, foods, etc. A fan favorite at any Thanksgiving spread is pie, more specifically pumpkin pie. What's Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie?! MCC Resident, Michael Poole, doesn't want to know!

Each November, Michael joins forces with MCC Occupational Therapist, Sandra Hetrick, to bake the beloved holiday staple from scratch. Once their work is finished in the kitchen, Michael shares the pie and quality time with his brother.

Pizza Palooza

Picture this, it's a Friday evening, you're with your dudes, and there's pizza ingredients of plenty. Okay, you don't really have to picture it, we took photos. You'll notice Jared's hands in the air wishing he had some sausage to top his pizza with!

Occupational Therapist, Jen LaGrande, and Education Coordinator, Jonaye Wallace, hosted a pizza party on Friday, November 28 for three Residents who have cooking related goals they've set forth to achieve. Seth, Billy, and Jared worked with Jen and Jonaye on following directions and sequencing to ensure each pie was assembled correctly before placing it in the oven to cook.

The Residents with cooking goals work with the Occupational Therapy team to choose the foods they want to make, assist in researching and selecting recipes, adding ingredients, assembling the food, and mixing the ingredients if needed. The Education team also works with these Residents on cognitive support goals that align with following direction, sequencing items, and working together to achieve a desired outcome.

Speech Accessibility Project

To date, 14 MCC Residents have participated in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Speech Accessibility Project. According to their website, "The project has unprecedented cross-industry support from Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, as well as nonprofit organizations whose communities will benefit from this accessibility initiative, to make speech recognition more inclusive of diverse speech patterns."

The project aims to record individuals with diverse voices–which many MCC Residents have–to create a private data set for training machine learning models and improving accessibility. When asked what it was like to participate in the project, Resident, Jamie Kearns answered,

"It was really an eye-opening experience for me, because I use Siri all the time and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work. I am hoping the Speech Accessibility Project in Illinois can make Siri even better than it is now."

MCC Residents and Speech Language Pathologists are honored to play a part in this initiative to help build the next generation of speech recognition tools.

Thank you to MCC Veterans

Each year on November 11, the nation joins together in recognizing veterans for their selfless service to our country. We would personally like to thank (from left to right) Shawntral (Shawn) Patterson, Chris Hiene, and Dwayne Gosa for their service.

Dwayne and Shawn both served in the United States Army while Chris served in the Navy. We are proud to have you on our team.

On the Road in Pictures

I've heard it said

That people come into our lives

For a reason, bringing something we must learn

And we are led to those who help us most to grow

If we let them, then we help them in return

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today, because I knew you

The highly anticipated, Wicked: For Good, premiered in theaters on November 21. Activities and Education staff rounded up the film's superfans and they were off to the theater. Unfortunately, somebunny special couldn’t join the group, but don’t worry, he made up for it by flying high and defying gravity. Be careful Benji, flying on a broom is a bit more advanced than being pushed a stroller!

Aside from an outing to the cinema, Residents also volunteered their time as 'Cat Cuddlers'

at a local animal rescue run by Faithful Friends. And when they weren't busy belting out lyrics from Wicked or entertaining the cats and kittens of Faithful Friends, they were enjoying food from everyone's favorite smorgasbord...Shady Maple!