Thank You Ohio Elks!

Sara’s Garden has been blessed to receive a $10,000 grant from the Ohio Elks for its work with children with Cerebral Palsy! Chuck Hilyard Jr. (Back Left) of the Toledo-Sylvania Elks Lodge #53 presented a check to Matt Rychener (Back Right) from Sara’s Garden.

The Ohio Elks Association provides financial aid to established Cerebral Palsy treatment centers. Every year, Ohio Elks lodges around the state raise money to support organizations who provide care, treatment, training and rehabilitation of individuals with Cerebral Palsy.

We are so grateful to the Ohio Elks Association, the CP Fund Board and the Toledo-Sylvania Elks Lodge #53 for this grant. Through this funding, Sara’s Garden is able to provide invaluable resources, equipment and programs for the clients, students and families we serve with Cerebral Palsy!.

Thank You Ohio Elks!

2017 Designer Purse Reverse Recap

Thursday, June 8th was the 2nd Annual Designer Purse Reverse to benefit Sara’s Garden.

We would like to thank all of the volunteers, participants and partners that helped make this event such an amazing success. Nearly 400 people were in attendance with hopes of winning beautiful handbags from designers such as Coach, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren and Dooney & Bourke. Over 30 amazing designer handbags were available to win throughout the night! We are so blessed by the turnout and continued support that everyone has shown for this event.

We are working on the date for next year’s event now so that everyone can make sure to save the date in their calendars now for another great time!

Below are photos from the event. Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version.

Volunteers: We are so grateful for your willing participation and involvement in supporting our event. Thank you so much for all of your work!

Participants: Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend it with us at Ironwood Golf Course. We hope you all enjoyed the event and look forward to seeing you again next summer.

Sponsors: Thank you so much for your partnership in this event. Because of your support we were able to provide fantastic prizes and giveaways to the participating teams.

Title Sponsors

Event Sponsors

Haas Door
Starkweather and Sons Roofing and Siding
Worthington Industries

Purse Sponsors

The Andersons Inc.
D&J Catering
First Federal Bank – Wauseon
Henry County Bank
Sara’s Garden Therapy Squad
ZF TRW

We are so grateful for everyone that took part in the 2017 Designer Purse Reverse and are so proud to be a part of such a caring and supportive community. All proceeds from this event will be used towards the purchase therapy equipment for our students at New Horizons Academy which will be invaluable resources to the children we serve with motor disabilities!

2017 “Drive Fore Hope” Recap

May 31, 2017
10:37 pm
Events

Friday, May 26th was the 6th Annual Sara’s Garden “Drive Fore Hope” Charity Golf Scramble.

We would like to thank all of the volunteers, participants and partners that helped make this event such an amazing success. The twenty eight teams that were on hand to play enjoyed a beautiful day at Ironwood Golf Course. We are so blessed by the turnout and continued support.

Next year’s “Drive Fore Hope” event will be held on Friday May 25, 2018. Make sure you save the date in your calendars now for another great time!

1st Place (Prize: TaylorMade M2 Drivers)

Mark Schweitzer, Gary Kohls, Jared Oyer, Bryce Bedsole

2nd Place (Prize: TaylorMade M2 Fairway Woods)

Brent Winzeler, Doug Krauss, Doug Tussing, Mark Tussing

3rd Place (Prize: TaylorMade Hybrid Rescue Clubs)

Jill Jacoby, Alan Elliott, Jim Aschliman, Dave Wilson

Men’s Longest Drive (Prize: Callaway XR Driver)

Jim Knox

Women’s Longest Drive (Prize: TaylorMade M2 Ladies Driver)

Jill Jacoby

Longest Putt (Prize: TaylorMade Monte Carlo Putter)

Dave Wilson

Closest to Pin (Prize: Callaway Fusion Stand Golf Bag)

N. Turner

Below are photos from the event. Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version.

Volunteers: We are so grateful for your willing participation and involvement in supporting our event. Thank you so much for all of your work!

Participants: Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend it with us at Ironwood Golf Course. We hope you all enjoyed the event and look forward to seeing you again next summer.

Partners: Thank you so much for your partnership in this event. Because of your support we were able to provide fantastic prizes and giveaways to the participating teams.

Platinum Title Partners

M&R Ready Mix & Weeping Willow Florist
Returning American Warriors
DAV Chapter 36, VFW Post 3360, VVA Chapter 0954

Gold Event Partners

Rupp Seeds, Inc.

Bronze Meal Partners

D&G Welding
Schuette Construction
Grieser Transportation
Swanton Welding & Machine
Creighton Electric

We are so grateful for everyone that took part in our “Drive Fore Hope” and are so proud to be a part of such a caring and supportive community.

Thank You Dollar General for Supporting LEGO Literacy!

Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy want to thank the Dollar General Literacy Foundation for supporting LEGO Literacy!

Everyone LOVES LEGOs, and LEGO has developed specific literacy kits for educational development. We are so excited to say that we have just received a $2,000 grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation in support of this project.

The LEGO Starter Sets give children the start of a story and then encourage them to “tell” the story, build its components out of LEGOs, and finally to write it down for publication. Our classes will also use Classic LEGO Sets to explore shapes, sizes, and color patterns; so children can build, play, interact, and socialize together. Middle schoolers and high schoolers won’t be left out either, building robotic LEGOs to support science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) principles. Everyone will also enjoy reading a wide variety of LEGO books from beginning readers to chapter books and even architectural and classical literature with LEGO and Brick illustrations for preschoolers to high schoolers.

Thank you, Dollar General, for helping our children love learning through LEGO Literacy!

NHA Teacher Lives School Motto

NHA Teacher Lives School Motto By TARYN LAWSON The Crescent-News

National Autism Awareness Month 2017 wraps up today.

At Wauseon’s New Horizons Academy (NHA) at Sara’s Garden, where 59 percent of the students who attend have been diagnosed with autism, Jessie Wolfrum’s “kiddos” (her term) are wrapping up their end-of-course achievement tests for the state.

Wolfrum, 29, is a newer teacher at NHA, having joined the school as a high school intervention specialist for the 2015-16 school year. Now, call me an ageist, but it is for this reason that I was surprised when Matt Rychener, executive director and CEO at Sara’s Garden, recommended Wolfrum to me for an article on working with autistic students. Wasn’t I going to get someone a little more … tried and tested? You know, hardened?

But I got Jessie Wolfrum, and now I know why.

Sometimes when we speak, we give away more than the words alone were intended to. Jessie Wolfrum gave something away during our interview Friday, and I’m glad I caught it, because otherwise, our conversation was a fairly standard one.

I don’t know Jessie, really. I’ve spoken with her once. She could be anyone! It might be hard then, you could assume, to write about her. How do I know she’s a great teacher (which I do)? What if she’s actually a terrible teacher (she’s most certainly not), and I’m missing some key piece of information? The onus is on me not to trust anyone, really…

We’ll start with the standard bit: Wolfrum is a Defiance native and Tinora High School graduate who studied intervention at Bowling Green State University, before continuing on to earn her master’s degree in education.

She told me she always knew she wanted to work with the special education population.

“I had an older brother who was diagnosed with ADHD, and he was diagnosed in the early 90s, so there wasn’t a lot out there for kids like him,” Wolfrum said. “He was very rambunctious and got in a lot of trouble; he had some behavioral outbursts. So I watched him growing up, getting labeled as a ‘bad kid,’ and I thought ‘I’m going to teach kids like that. And they’re going to love it. They’re going to love school, and they’re going to love me.’”

Every item on that enthusiastically delivered list of predictions for future-Jessie, as it turns out, happened!

Wolfrum has six students at NHA, from freshmen to seniors, each with a unique curriculum suited to his or her own abilities.

Wolfrum’s own five-year-old son is autistic, non-verbal — a boy who “knows exactly what he wants, and has his own ways of telling us.”

“One of the big autism-awareness slogans is ‘different, not less,’ and I think that’s exactly it,” Wolfrum said. “They think differently, they communicate differently, but they are just as able, if not more able, than some of their neurotypical peers.”

So those are the basics. But then I asked Jessie Wolfrum a question I ask almost everyone: “What is the most challenging part of your job?”

Take a moment to imagine Jessie Wolfrum’s day-to-day job. Picture her in the classroom, putting out fires and guiding six completely unique young adults along their tailor-made educational paths. And her answer was this:

“Having a wide enough variety of knowledge myself to challenge them educationally, because these kids are smart,” Wolfrum said.

So the hardest part, for her, is being good enough for them. Earlier in our talk, Wolfrum cheerily (maybe obligatorily) recited the school’s “kids come first” motto. Her answer here, though, showed me she’s living it too.

Celebrating Global Youth Services Day!

Thanks to Serve Ohio, Americorps, and the Ohio Commission on Service and Volunteerism, Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy celebrated Global Youth Service Day on Friday, April 21! The students, staff, and gardeners immersed themselves in “green therapy.” For some of our kids, this was the first time that they “got their hands dirty,” planting fruits, vegetables, and flowers in individual, classroom, and school planters. With Earth Day on April 22 and Arbor Day on April 28 through container gardening, they made their school, community, and the world a greener, more beautiful place to live, play, and grow in. Thank you, Serve Ohio!

Rumored Sale to ProMedica Completely False

It has been brought to our attention that a rumor is currently circulating that Sara’s Garden is no longer a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and has sold out to ProMedica.

Our board of directors wants to address the claim immediately and put it to rest. This rumor is completely false and goes against everything Sara’s Garden stands for. Clients with non-reimbursable conditions and diagnoses would no longer have access to the life changing services we are here to provide. A move like this would mean that we would no longer be able to serve the very clients and families we were created to help and are driven to serve.

We are not sure how or where this rumor started but wanted to let all of our clients, families and supporters know that there is absolutely no truth in it. Our mission has not changed, and that mission is unwavering. If you have any questions regarding this matter please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

William Patrick Frank President, Board of Directors

Thank You Roach Family Foundation!

New Horizons Academy’s students, parents, teachers, and staff want to THANK the Roach Family Foundation for their generosity in supporting our behavioral management program!

Through this funding, New Horizons Academy will be able to subscribe to the Chartlytics Behavioral Software System. This behavioral tracking system will make it so much easier, more efficient, and less time-consuming for our staff to track students’ progress on their IEP behavioral goals and objectives. Teachers, behavioral specialists, and parents will now be able to track behavioral patterns, which may help our students to reach their behavioral goals sooner. Such patterns may include specific behaviors or escalated behaviors occurring during certain times of the day, classes, before or after meals, or around certain peers or adults. These are all variables, which could be adjusted to help students to reach their short-term and long-term behavioral goals.

With the large amount of data to track, the Chartlytics Behavior Software will help us to turn a mountain of data into a trackable program, which will help us to monitor student progress and give parents true hope for behavioral change!

Thank You!

What If?

Andrew and Ashley had always envisioned children in their family’s future (although the exact number was always up for debate). After being married a little over a year, they decided they were ready to start their family. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as they had always dreamed. After months of trying to conceive, they were finally blessed with the great news that a little one was on the way. Unfortunately, the happiness was short-lived. Ashley lost the baby early on in the pregnancy. After a time of healing and processing, they decided it was time to try again. After what seemed like a lifetime, their prayers were answered and they were once again expecting a little one!

This time, Ashley’s pregnancy was pretty textbook. They were encouraged by the positive news they received at every doctor’s appointment. The baby’s growth was looking great, and every new ultrasound showed what Andrew and Ashley believed to be the cutest baby ever. The only concern the doctor expressed was that the baby was breech, but he felt that there was plenty time and enough space for the baby to turn itself.

Everything changed on the morning of July 24, 2016, one month before the baby was due. Ashley was awakened by a big kick and a sensation that she needed to go to the bathroom. When she got out of bed, she realized that her water had broken but wasn’t experiencing any contractions or pain. She could tell that something was wrong. Andrew realized that the umbilical cord had prolapsed and knew he needed to get Ashley to the hospital immediately.

Fortunately, Andrew and Ashley lived only a mile away from an ambulatory care facility so Andrew took her there. Upon arrival, Ashley was rushed back into a room where the attending doctor was able to put the cord back in. He attempted to hold pressure to allow the baby to receive some much-needed oxygen. From there, Ashley was rushed to the hospital by ambulance where the on-call OB/GYN was ready to perform an emergency c-section.

Within three minutes of arriving at the hospital, Peyton Jane Goecke was born…without a heartbeat. For the first eight minutes of her life, a team of doctors tried to revive her while her parents prayed earnestly for her survival. In the ninth minute, they finally succeeded. Because of her traumatic entrance into the world, Peyton was deprived of oxygen for an estimated 40 minutes before birth.

Once Peyton was breathing (with the assistance of machines), she was transferred by air to a children’s hospital to receive specialized care. Because she was without oxygen for so long, the doctors were certain that Peyton had suffered severe brain damage. The outlook was not bright. She was placed on a cooling-bed for 72 hours in an attempt to give her time to slowly heal and prevent any further brain damage. After her time on the cooling bed, MRI scans were not positive and everyone feared the worst. Peyton’s doctors had the ill-fated task of informing Andrew and Amy that their future with Peyton would not look like the picture they had been envisioning. They were told that she had suffered severe brain damage and that she may never breathe, eat, walk or talk on her own. They were even told prepare themselves to make life and death decisions regarding their precious baby girl.

Throughout this entire time, Andrew and Ashley stayed positive and believed that their little girl would pull through and be the miracle they knew she already was. As the days went by, Peyton continued to grow stronger and showed the doctors that she was going to survive and thrive! While Peyton was able to breathe on her own, she still did need a little help eating. After 65 days in the NICU, Peyton was finally released and was able to come home on her parents 3rd wedding anniversary!

Andrew and Ashley knew they would still have obstacles to overcome and that Peyton would need more help. However, they were determined they would move mountains to give Peyton the best shot at an amazing life. Through conversations with his co-workers, Andrew learned about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) at Sara’s Garden. After doing countless hours of research, Andrew and Ashley decided that if they didn’t try HBOT they might always wonder “What if?”… so, in November 2017, Peyton started her first round of HBOT treatments.

After only the first day of treatment, Andrew and Ashley saw an immediate difference in Peyton’s temperament. Prior to HBOT, Peyton was fussy 90% of the time if someone wasn’t holding her. After her first day of treatment, she enjoyed laying on her play mat, looking around and moving her arms. Prior to treatment, Peyton also hated her car seat and would scream the entire time she was in it…whether that was for five minutes or two hours. Surprisingly, after her first day of treatment, she suddenly wasn’t so upset about being put in it. Additionally, the tightness in her hands decreased, she was tracking and following just about everyone that walked into a room, and even her sucking got stronger.

Following Peyton’s first round of forty HBOT treatments, Andrew and Ashley were very encouraged by what they saw. They were looking forward to another round to see what else Peyton would gain. In February 2017, Peyton started her next round of treatments. Throughout this round, Peyton continued to gain strength and even started to become nosy, paying attention to everyone and wanting to be the center of attention all the time. She has become more social, smiles all the time, and has even started to coo.

Thanks to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy at Sara’s Garden, Peyton has made gains that her parents were once told were not possible. Andrew and Ashley have plans to continue on with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. They also plan to begin Conductive Education services at Sara’s Garden to help give Peyton the best shot possible at an independent life. Andrew and Ashley know that Peyton is a miracle, and they have truly been blessed by her! They cannot wait to see what the future holds for such an amazing little girl!

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 State Charter Approved!

We are thrilled to announce that New Horizons Academy has been approved by the Ohio Department of Education to become one of the newest non-public, chartered schools in the state of Ohio!

The New Horizons Academy teachers, staff, and students did an outstanding job with the Ohio Department of Education’s site visit on January 25!

Since New Horizons Academy has been providing outstanding educational and intervention opportunities for years, there will be very few changes in day-to-day operations with the charter’s approval. The biggest change is that many of our students’ home school districts have begun transporting them to New Horizons Academy if their families live more than two miles away from the school but less than 30 minutes away. Thank you to Archbold, Defiance, Delta, Liberty Center, Napoleon, Northeastern Local, Patrick Henry, Stryker, and Wauseon!

As a nonpublic, chartered school, the students’ home school districts are still responsible for their individualized education plans (IEP’s) while Wauseon Exempted Village Schools will be responsible for all testing. New Horizons Academy and its staff will continue to work closely with parents and home school districts on IEP goals and ETR plans.

New Horizons Academy is looking forward to its final ODE site visit before the end of this school year. NHA’s newly-formed school board will hold its next meeting on Tuesday, June 6 at 5:30 p.m. in the Hope Center.