Parents’ Place: Information Fair and Festival

Welcome To Grelling Residential Home Open Forum . . .

. . . where we hope you will be able to visit to ask important questions, offer suggestions, and receive feedback about your adult family member with developmental disabilities

Immediately after church, Grelling Residential Home packed up our eight passenger Suburban with a picnic lunch, four residents, and two staff members (Russ and Ann). We had filled our stomachs at breakfast with extra cranberry bread and orange juice, so we would not be tempted to eat the free donuts at church.

Our two male residents helped me greet the arriving congregation, while our two female residents helped Ann at the hospitality table hand out sermon outlines and fill out name tags. It was already getting hot at 9:45 am, so we were all grateful that our new church is meeting at the La Verne Community Center. The air conditioning was great inside!

Our pastor is Jim Jackson. He and his wife, Julie, started our little church in their home about six months ago. It was a wonderful experience for our residents to be charter members of a house church. After a couple of months we had grown so quickly, the city inspector began leaving notes on the Jackson’s front door suggesting that we find a larger location. Just a couple of months at La Verne Community and we are pushing an attendance of 100 people. Already we need a bigger place to worship (hopefully with air conditioning).

Our residents are an important part of our church community. They receive calls and visits from church friends; they are invited to lunches, birthday parties, and baby showers; and they are loved and appreciated for who they are. Revive Church is a pretty special group of people. If you would like to know more about our church, the web address is www.revivechurch.org.

We were excited to get to Cortez Park in West Covina. Our plans were to eat a picnic lunch, then walk through the Parents’ Place Fair and Festival, and sample all of the free goodies. Lunch was really good. We had the traditional foods like fried chicken, potato salad, water melon, and deviled eggs. Inspite of the near 100 degree temperature, we found a shaded, breezy spot at the top of the hill over looking the fair.

The fair was packed with people. Actually, I was surprised to see so many tables and booths sponsored by resource groups for children and young adults with developmental disabilities.

Our first stop was at the San Gabriel Pomona Regional Center table. Dr. Keith Penman, the president of the regional center, was sitting behind the table. Ann and I spoke briefly with Keith, then introduced our clients to him. Keith hadn’t seen our friend, Paula Jeppson.

A few tables down the side walk, the Covina Development Center was set up. We were looking for our friend, Paula Jeppson, the Executive Director of the Center. She had invited us to share her table. One look, and we knew that there was not going to be room for our brochures. CDC was already sharing the table with another resource group. There were five people behind the table. So, we stored our box under their table and continued our exploring.

After pictures with Spider Man, free snow cones and cotton candy, frisbees, key rings, pens and pencils, filled our bags. We were on our way to the exit, when we came to the Pasadena Nazarene (Paz Naz) Church table. Paz Naz has recently started a church ministry for adults with developmental disabilities. Their special needs minister invited us to their Wednesday night dinner and activities. We’ll have to check it out.

The walk back to the Suburban seemed longer than the walk to the fair. It was even hotter and stickier (snow cones and cotton candy) than before. Kassie, our wonderful staff person, was waiting for us with cold drinks when we got home.

Ann and I did not meet any parents with adult children between the ages 18-29. We had hoped we would be able to speak to parents who may be seeking an appropriate residential home for their family members. Presently, we have two openings in our home. If you know a family who may have concerns about placing their adult son or daughter in a residential home, we hope you will have them call us or email us. We would like to help them with their concerns.

Respectfully yours,
Russ Grelling