Giving Tuesday NWO 2019

Mark your calendars for #GivingTuesdayNWO!

#GivingTuesdayNWO Offers You a Chance to Give Back to the Community, Show Your Thankfulness for Everything You Have & Share a Portion of What You Have with Those in Need.

Event Date:	Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Event Location:	Sauder Village – Founder’s Hall 22611 State Route 2 Archbold, OH 43502
Event Time:	5:00 p.m.

Last year, the gifts received from #GivingTuesdayNWO helped us to fund and expand our playground project to include both a fully accessible, indoor playground in Wauseon and a multi-sensory, accessible playground at our new school campus in Springfield Township—Holland. Our special needs kids love to play, and they use play as a way to develop their gross motor and problem-solving skills. Play is also a great way to practice their social skills and build healthy relationships. The gifts and donations from last year’s #GivingTuesdayNWO have helped us to cover most of the cost of Wauseon’s indoor playground equipment, but we still need your help and support to cover the cost of the playground’s soft, rubberized surface to protect our children from falls and injuries and to begin developing Springfield’s multi-sensory playground, which will target autistic students dealing with sensory issues. Before we begin playground construction, we need to finish our fundraising efforts.

Please consider supporting our playground efforts this holiday season! With matching funds available through #GivingTuesdayNWO, this is a great opportunity to support our special needs kids AND get the most from your generous donation. Through your caring and support, we hope to continue to make a difference in the lives of our special needs children and their families.

Celebrate Giving Tuesday with:

The Difference Makers Expo and appetizers.
Dinner and panel discussions from local nonprofits.
Giving opportunities to support causes important to you.

No gift is too small to help inspire change in Northwest Ohio!

For more information on #GivingTuesdayNWO or to register for the event, log onto Everence.com/GivingTuesdayNWO.

Start Planning for Summer 2020

It’s never too early to start planning for our upcoming 2020 summer intervention programs!

2020 Camp Dates:

Wauseon: June 01-26
Springfield: July 06-31

Sara’s Garden offers amazing summer intervention programs for children with disabilities. These month-long programs deliver inclusive therapies that provide interventions for individuals with a variety of conditions and disabilities.

Our caring and experienced staff of licensed therapists, conductors and paraprofessionals create unique, intensive therapy-based programs that are tailored to the needs of each participant and are designed to enhance your child’s developmental skills. This approach not only helps your child to work towards greater independence, it also keeps the regression of skills and development that typically occurs over the summer months at bay.

Goals of these programs include:

Improving Interpersonal Skills:

Relationship building
Responding to his/her name
Learning the names of peers
Basic conversation skills
Behavioral skill development

Improving Fine and Gross Motor Skills:

Range of motion
Sitting and standing
Walking and transfers
Self feeding
Independent living skills

Improving Language Skills:

Vocabulary knowledge and understanding
Basic concepts
Following verbally presented directions
Improving story comprehension
Improve Reading/Writing Skills

Improving Social Skills:

Greetings
Turn Taking
Initiating communication
Informing and directing others
Requesting

Our summer intervention programs also provide support for children who use augmentative communication systems (low tech or high tech) who have language and literacy skills and need more experience with peer to peer social skills.

We serve clients with (but not limited to): ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, CDKL5, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Near Drowning, Seizure Disorders, Sensory Processing Disorders, Spina Bifida, Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury.

Additional information is being compiled on potential funding and grant options for families in need of financial support.

For more information, please contact Ronda Rupp at 833.668.7272 or via email at rondar@sarasgarden.org.

Thanks for our Thanksgiving Dinner!

Thank you, Wauseon Machine Employee Driven Charity (W.E. Care Fund) Committee, for making Thanksgiving SO SPECIAL for our New Horizons Academy (NHA) students! W.E. Care’s donation made this year’s Thanksgiving luncheon possible.

On November 25, all of NHA’s students will sit down together to share a traditional meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, corn, and a roll and share what they are TRULY THANKFUL for (No one needs to pack a lunch.). This is an opportunity for them to think about who is important in their lives and to truly share of themselves in decorating the hall or serving their fellow students and teachers. This is one of those school traditions, which helps us to remember and be grateful for such a loving, caring school family! To see pictures from last year’s Thanksgiving feast, click HERE.

Thank you, Wauseon Machine’s W.E. Care Fund, for helping our students to feel such a part of a caring, thankful community!

2019 NHA Christmas Program

“Get ready to shiver, shimmy and shake! The North wind is starting to blow and temperatures are dropping to 10 below… zero, that is! A big blizzard is on the way as a cool bunch of jazzy, finger-snappin’ snowflakes take center stage. What a glistening sight. Uh Oh! Here comes the snowplow!”

The 2019 NHA Christmas program will be taking place on Tuesday, December 10th at 6pm. It will again be held Pettisville Missionary Church in Pettisville, Ohio with overflow parking available at nearby Pettisville school. It will feature students from New Horizons Academy and will include the musical Flakes! as the main event of the evening.

Join the fun as the Flakes and Snirts help the Littlest Snowflake see how no two flakes are alike and we are all special in our own way.

Artwork shown here is by some of our talented students!

Welcome Christmas (An Event for Families)

Tired of feeling stressed, rushed, and joyless at Christmas? Then “Welcome Christmas” is for you. A time to slow down, relax, and focus on what truly matters during Advent and at Christmas. Families from St. John Lutheran Church, south of Archbold, will be hosting this event at our facilities.

Event Date:	Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Event Time:	6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Event Location:	The Hope Center at Sara’s Garden, Wauseon, Ohio
Event Cost:	$0 ~ FREE

The evening includes supper and a fun family project to help you “Welcome Christmas” during Advent and Christmas caroling! Families will be creating 20 simple ornaments to put on small Christmas tree (provided) every day between the event and Christmas day to count down to Christmas and learn about its true meaning!

To help us prepare how much food is needed, please preregister by Friday, November 8 by completing the registration form below. If you have any questions, please contact Matt Rychener (mattr@sarasgarden.org) at 419.335.7272 or Jennifer Grime (grimejen@gmail.com) at 419.267.5266.

Hope and Healing: One Woman’s Story

Active. Dedicated. Ambitious. Engaged. Successful… All fitting words to describe Barb’s professional career, home life and church ministry. For over 40 years, Barb enjoyed balancing a challenging corporate sales schedule together with fulfilling family time and volunteer work. Ultimately, the stress from her work demands and environmental exposure to chemicals throughout her career took its toll on her health and she was hospitalized multiple times for congestive heart failure, ovarian cancer and uterine cancer.

Even after retiring in 2008, Barb continued to stay active in her church and with her grandchildren, volunteering to help with numerous events and activities. All that changed on Christmas Eve of 2018 when Barb suffered a stroke. Unfortunately, Barb mistook the symptoms of her stroke for chemical toxicity as she had been varnishing furniture and thought she had simply inhaled too many fumes. After nearly a week, a friend came to visit and after talking with Barb, immediately recognized her symptoms as that of a stroke and immediately took her to the hospital.

While at the hospital, she learned about the benefits of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) for stroke survivors. Her doctor informed her that because HBOT was not an insurance reimbursable condition for the treatment of stroke, she should contact Sara’s Garden. Friends and neighbors agreed that Barb should try HBOT as they had heard and seen great things from the treatments in their own lives. It was from her hospital bed, that Barb first reached out to Sara’s Garden for help.

Following her stroke, Barb could not speak in good, clear sentences. Her thought patterns were erratic and her sequencing was extremely jumbled. She was told that she didn’t make a whole lot of sense when speaking to others. Additionally, she was very tired, lacked ambition and could hardly use the right side of her body or turn over in bed. She was dizzy and unbalanced and had to use a walker at all times to get around. She could not text on her phone, type on a computer or open jars or packaging of any kind. For a woman who had been successful and independent her entire life, it was extremely frustrating for Barb to be so limited in just about everything she tried to do.

It was not long after starting HBOT treatments that Barb started noticing benefits… not huge leaps, but slow and gradual improvements in her speech, memory, cognitive thinking and overall mental capacity. Her attention span increased and her vision improved. Barb’s thought processing became clearer as did her ability to reason and make sense. The fears that had been experiencing left her and she regained her confidence to tackle jobs and tasks around the house. While she still had some difficulties with her mobility, she became much more stable on her feet.

Her friends and family were thrilled to see Barb asking like her old self again. Her favorite comment that she received from a friend was when they said, “I think you are smarter now than before you went to Sara’s Garden.” Barb is now back at church regularly and even did all the craft teaching for their Vacation Bible School. Her family is happy that she is active again and back to doing more around the house. She is able to do laundry, yard work and shopping. Cooking can still be challenging at times but compared to before it has greatly improved. Most importantly, Barb is once again able to babysit her granddaughters and meet all of their needs. According to Barb, her life has done a complete turnaround over the past six months.

Barb can not say enough about her time at Sara’s Garden and the benefits she received from Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. She laughs that she may sound like a broken record to her friends because she talks about HBOT everywhere she goes and with everyone she meets. HBOT has given her a new lease on life as she is once again able to reason and physically able do virtually everything she could do before her stroke.

According to Barb, “It is because of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy that I am where I am today. The love of God and people shines in the face of every caregiver, teacher and administrator at Sara’s Garden. Just being in the presence of the staff is uplifting and beneficial. I have observed more positive and encouraging behaviors toward children and people of needs at Sara’s Garden than any place else on earth! It truly is a labor of love from God!”

No matter what you’ve been told, there is hope… for this and many other conditions. HBOT is treatment without drugs… without surgery… without pain.

NHA to Open New Toledo Campus

Sara’s Garden is pleased to announce that it will be expanding its special needs educational and intervention services to the Greater Toledo Area with the opening of its second regional special needs school—New Horizons Academy—Springfield. Just like its Wauseon campus, the Springfield campus is dedicated to providing the highest quality of educational programming available and to empowering children with disabilities to recognize and optimize their full potential.

New Horizons Academy is a chartered, nonpublic school, serving preschool children through young adults (up to age 21)—transitioning from school to the work environment. New Horizons Academy began in 2012 with two students and has grown in just seven years to 100. Superintendent Gene Rupp explains the key to the school’s success, “Our special needs students are children first with all of the needs, desires, and feelings of children without disabilities. They are more like other children than different. Their disabilities are inconveniences that keep them from enjoying full lives, and therefore must be overcome or compensated for so that the children can grow and move out into the world. At New Horizons Academy, kids come first. We exist for our students; our students do not exist for the school. Students don’t have to fit into the classes; the class and program are made to meet the individual student’s needs.”

New Horizons Academy’s Wauseon campus serves special needs students from nine different Northwest Ohio counties and 22 school districts; and now, New Horizons Academy is ready to expand its services into the Greater Toledo Area by offering special education, intervention, and therapy services at its new location, 6201 Trust Drive in Holland.

Its Springfield campus will open its doors to students on Monday, September 9. A community-wide Open House will also be held on September 9 from 6-8:00 p.m.

New Horizons Academy is an applied behavioral analysis (ABA) school, which has created a unique, accepting and loving environment for all of its students and staff. Sara’s Garden wants to share this caring, compassionate, educational environment with a whole new batch of students. Unlike traditional classrooms, New Horizons Academy has an incredibly low staff to student ratio of 1 to 2 with all of our students on individual education plans (IEP’s). Personalized teaching and instruction are the keys to reaching many of our special needs students. Their classrooms are small. Their teachers know and care about them, and they don’t get lost in the rush. Our students are what matters!

“A young child with special needs in a regular classroom often finds himself as the only ‘problem’ in the class, always needing extra help and always being the different one,” explained principal Marty Friess. “At New Horizons Academy, this child has classmates, who do some things better than he does and classmates who do some things not as well. The child is not different or special; he is just one of the kids—free to develop an ‘I CAN’ attitude. This is what New Horizons Academy is all about. If this is what you and your special needs child is looking for, then look no farther. Please come visit and tour New Horizons Academy.”

Initially in Springfield, our primary focus will be on early intervention, preschool to second grade, middle school to high school students focusing on the importance of life and work skills, and 18-21 year old young adults transitioning from school to work with a heavy emphasis on vocational training and goals.

As a chartered, nonpublic school, New Horizons Academy accepts the Autism and Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarships as payment in full from the Ohio Department of Education and also contracts with local school districts to serve their more severely affected autistic students. New Horizons Academy provides educational, aide, intervention, and therapy services as a part of its tuition and educational program.

For more information about New Horizons Academy or its Springfield Campus, please call or email the Springfield Director Tara Dumas at 419-335-7272 or tarad@sarasgarden.org or to set up a tour or to get information about enrolling your child in New Horizons Academy, please call or email Admissions Director Ronda Rupp at 419-335-7272 or email at rondar@sarasgarden.org.

Thank You!

Sara’s Garden is SO blessed by the caring Northwest Ohio organizations and businesses share with our special needs kids and their families! A big thank you to the St. Caspar’s Knights of Columbus, the Ohio Elks and the Toledo—Sylvania Elks Lodge #53, the Delta Eagles Auxiliary, and the Wauseon Walmart for all you do for Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy!

These gifts, donations, and grants will help us to make our indoor playground a reality and help to fund our Before & After School Program. Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy relies so much on the generosity and caring of Northwest Ohio groups and organizations. Please take a moment during your busy day to thank St. Caspar’s Knights of Columbus, the Ohio Elks and the Toledo—Sylvania Elks Lodge #53, the Delta Eagles Auxiliary, and the Wauseon Walmart for all you do for Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy!

You’re Invited to NHA’s Open Houses

Welcome Back to School with NHA Open Houses in Wauseon & Springfield!

New Horizons Academy (NHA) is so excited to welcome back its students, teachers, and staff to its Wauseon Campus at Sara’s Garden on August 14. NHA is so pleased to also announce the opening of its Springfield Campus, 6201 Trust Dr. in Holland on September 9. To mark the back to school season and to celebrate our regional special needs campuses, New Horizons Academy will be hosting its:

August 13: Annual Open House at 220 Lawrence Ave. in Wauseon from 6:00-8:00 p.m.
September 9: Inaugural Open House at 6201 Trust Dr. in Holland from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

To make the Open Houses a little less overwhelming for our special needs students, the Open Houses will have staggered start times with the preschoolers and elementary school-aged students, families, and friends coming from 6:00-6:45 p.m. and the middle school through our School to Work Transitional Classes (up to age 21) coming from 7:00-7:45 p.m. Friends, family, and the public are ALL INVITED to the NHA Wauseon Campus Open House on August 13 and the NHA Springfield Campus Open House on September 9.

Both NHA campuses will also be hosting Educators Open Houses and Tours on:

September 19: Educators Open House at 220 Lawrence Ave. in Wauseon from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
September 26: Educators Open House at 6201 Trust Dr. in Holland from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

“Please join us in kicking off a GREAT YEAR at NHA in Wauseon and Springfield,” invited NHA Superintendent Gene Rupp. “We are looking forward to an exciting year and hope that you will join us on August 13 and/or September 9 and become a part of the excitement and growth that is New Horizons Academy!”

For more information on NHA or any of its Open Houses, please call the school office at 419-335-7272 or email katieh@sarasgarden.org

The Definition of a Winner!

These days Christopher Schaub is wearing many hats. He is a 2018 New Horizons Academy (NHA) graduate, Northwest State Community College (NSCC) student, Presidential Scholar, as well as a NHA mentor and role model.

It wasn’t that long ago that Christopher Schaub was a student at New Horizons Academy. He started at NHA as a high schooler in 2014 and excelled throughout his four years. Christopher qualified for College Credit Plus (CCP) classes, earned dual high school-college credit, completed 12 college credits while still in high school, and made both the Dean’s List and Honor Roll through Northwest State Community College.

From his first year’s NHA report card, Intervention Specialist Patrick Nightingale stated, “Christopher has grown more during his sophomore year in high school than any student that I have had the privilege to work with… He has become a stronger, smarter, and more creative asset to any classroom. Christopher has a bright future ahead of him and it was an honor to work with him.”

His maturity and academic strengths continued to blossom and grow during his four years at NHA. While he was here, Christopher had lunch almost daily with the middle schoolers and served as a role model and friend for them. Having received a full-ride Presidential Scholarship with a Legacy Scholarship to Northwest State Community College in Archbold, Christopher has chosen to continue giving back to our middle school and high school students.

This school year, Christopher has volunteered just about every Friday at NHA, having lunch with the middle schoolers, supporting the high schoolers, pitching in wherever he is needed, and even “boogieing” down at the last Spring Dance. Christopher truly cares about the students at New Horizons Academy.

As intervention specialist Jessie Wolfrum put it, “I thought I knew what it was like to be proud of a student, but Christopher took that to a new level! He has set the bar high with his consistent hard work and determination to be successful regardless of the obstacles placed in his path. In my eyes, he is the definition of WINNER!”

And we hope that Christopher keeps winning and succeeding! He has had an absolutely awesome first year of college, taking a wide variety of classes and learning so much. We are so proud that Christopher was and still IS a part of New Horizons Academy! He is a testament to the hope and success that we hope all autistic children can find in their own way here at New Horizons Academy and Sara’s Garden.

If you are looking for a caring school environment or a place where your special needs student can grow, thrive, and become as independent as he or she possibly can, then please consider calling Sara’s Garden at 419-335-7272 and setting up a tour of New Horizons Academy, our special needs school which serves students from nine counties and 20 different school systems.