Arc of Monroe Awarded $207,000 in Grants from NYSARC Trust Services

Programs and Services

The Arc of Monroe has been awarded $207,000 in grants from the Trustee Management Board of NYSARC Trust Services to support the Arc of Monroe’s guardianship and recreation programs. NYSARC Trust Services administers supplemental needs trusts (SNT) that can make dramatic improvements to the lives of people with disabilities while enabling people to maintain eligibility for public benefits programs, such as Medicaid and SSI. This year, The Arc of Monroe received $195,000 to provide guardianship services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who would not otherwise have a legal guardian or advocate.  Supported by Chapter staff and community volunteers, …

MCC Experience Program Finds Temporary Home Downtown

COVID-19, Programs and Services, Stories Of People We Support

2020 has been the year of “the pivot.” When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it turned nearly every area of the Rochester community upside down. The MCC Experience Program at The Arc of Monroe was no exception. Monroe Community College (MCC) Experience is a higher education transitional service that prepares participants for eventual community employment. People learn relevant, marketable employment skills and acquire vocational internship and volunteer experience in various departments on and off MCC campus. Located at MCC’s Downtown Campus since 2017, the campus offered opportunities to gather, socialize, learn, and experience many facets of college life. With their student …

A Toast to The Arc Family!

COVID-19, Programs and Services, Uncategorized, Volunteer

Wow, what a year this has been. Each and every one of our lives has been affected in different ways. We have also become unified in our determination to contain the spread of this virus. This could not be done without every single one of us, doing our parts, and extending ourselves even more than we thought we could. While drawing close to our loved ones at home, the staff at The Arc of Monroe left theirs to stand together with those we support in their homes. They became heroes overnight, doing everything they could to keep the people we …

Celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Programs and Services, Stories Of People We Support, Uncategorized

Celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month During October, we are celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month and highlighting a few people we support who are employed through our Job Path program. First up, we highlight Steve Blum who works as a Lot Attendant at Home Depot where he’s been since 2002. Steve says he enjoys the job and his coworkers very much. He’s been working throughout the pandemic, thankful for the opportunity to keep patrons safe by sanitizing the Home Depot carts – something completely new for him. Now he’s used to it and enjoys keep the customers know the …

Manufacturing at ArcWorks

Meet Audrey: 13 years at ArcWorks

Employment, Programs and Services, Stories Of People We Support

Meet Audrey who is celebrating 13 years ArcWorks. If you have the opportunity to work alongside Audrey you’ll quickly see she is positive, enthusiastic, hard-working and a great role model to colleagues. Audrey likes the manufacturing and production work she does, especially on the assembly line or packaging. Audrey really enjoys her work hours which are 8:30AM to 2:30PM. Today you can find Audrey packaging medicine, making sure there are 12 bottles in each box. Audrey also enjoys putting together the boxes that will eventually be filled by other ArcWorks teams. “I like busy work,” she explains. Other recent packaging …

Nutrition, Diet Technician

Nutrition: making small changes for a big impact

Health and Wellness, Programs and Services

Antonietta Alfano is a Diet Technician working with individuals who live in our residential homes. She coaches both Arc of Monroe staff and residents on healthy eating while working closely with each person she supports on nutritional needs. To assist staff at each house, Antonietta will check receipts as needed to ensure healthy eating and recommends foods to purchase as needed for the individual’s diets as well as the rest of the home. To help people she supports, she provides pictures of the foods that are recommended on their plates and work with them one-on-one to make healthier choices. Antonietta …

woman smiling

Determining autism in children

Programs and Services

In our current world of social media, we are quick to post updates about our children.  When they walk, their first words, playdates with their friends.  While it can be great to stay so connected, it seems that this is also increasing parent’s concerns about their children and if they are developing appropriately.  Seeing a similar aged child meeting developmental milestones sooner than your child can often cause parents to worry.  It is important to remember that children follow their own timelines of development, and slight variances are not usually a cause for concern.  But what is typical, and what …

College Experience

Getting a college experience

Programs and Services

Victoria, or Tori, Campbell attends the Arc of Monroe’s MCC Experience program at Monroe Community College. This is her second year in the MCC Experience program. About MCC Experience MCC Experience is a higher education transitional service that prepares people such as Tori for employment. Through classroom learning, participating in campus activities, internships and volunteering Tori is learning all the necessary skills that will help her reach her goals. This program shares a classroom with Greece Central School District. Together they work on survival skills, career development, go to the fitness center, socialize at College Hours, and participate in clubs …

ArcWorks, Contract Manufacturing

ArcWorks integrating people with disabilities into the workforce

Programs and Services

By: Velvet Spicer November 27, 2019 published in the Rochester Business Journal. In 2017, just 6 percent of Monroe County’s more than 57,000 disabled residents were employed, and of the nearly 20,000 total individuals unemployed in the county that year, some 19 percent were people with disabilities. ArcWorks, a program of the Arc of Monroe, is looking to improve that. “We’re an integrated contract manufacturer that employs assembly operators and individuals with disabilities,” said ArcWorks’ business development manager Melissa Mayo. “Many people who come in to take a tour, I don’t know what their thoughts were in the past, but when they …

Transition Service

College experience participants out and about in Rochester

Programs and Services

Our Monroe Community College (MCC) Experience participants had a busy summer and wrote about the experiences below. Support college experience programs like these by making a DONATION now. Community Involvement By: Britanie Smith & Alexander Gresens We went to the Buffalo Bills Training Camp at St John Fisher College.We played games with LifePrep@Naz students, like a Family Feud game! We took some individual photos with the mascot and then a group photo after. We took a group photo with LifePrep. We went to Charlotte Beach and we had fun in the sun plus some people decided to walk on the …