Liberty Club Helps Disabled Adults Stay Connected

Life doesn’t end at the age of 26. But for some disabled adults, the options for living life fully after that age were limited—until initiated a program called Liberty Club.

Liberty Club opened its doors Jan. 3 at Liberty School. Every week, from Monday to Thursday, director Jackie Macy opens her doors to a small group of disabled adults.

Every morning, they go over the daily news. They read the local newspaper. They engage in arts, crafts and other activities. They learn about history and geography from guest speakers. And they have so much fun with their friends, it’s difficult to believe they’ve known each other for just slightly more than a month.

Before Liberty Club, there weren’t many programs serving Saline-area disabled adults over the age of 26. A state mandate requires school districts to offer programming to adults age 26 and under. Macy’s son is enrolled in the Community Education’s young adults program. She fretted over the day he would graduate from the program.

“I know what it is like. You want to know there is some place for them to go, because you don’t want their socialization and contact with the community to stop,” Macy said. “It was like the community was saying, ‘OK, we’re done with you.’ At age 26, everything just stopped.”

Ryan Noel, recreation and education enrichment specialist for Saline Community Education, said Liberty Club was formed to help families like Macy’s.

“Before now, there was nowhere for an adult with special needs to go. Often, parents of special needs adults would be forced to quit their jobs to stay home and take care of their adult,” Noel said. “We surveyed the special needs community, and after talking with families we came up with Liberty Club.”

The idea is to keep the adults in touch with the community and the world around them.

Jan. 26 was Michigan’s 174^th birthday. Retired Saline teacher James Cameron had visited earlier in the morning to talk about the Great Lakes State.

A little later in the morning, Macy went around the room quizzing students on what Cameron talked about.

“What is today?” Macy asked.

 “Michigan’s anniversary,” answered 34-year-old Amy Acree.

“It’s anniversary of what?” Macy asked.

“Of becoming a state,” replied Jessie Stevens, 28.

“And what year did it become a state?” Macy asked.

After a few seconds, Stevens came up with the answer.

“1837!” she said.

They went around the room, asking and answering questions about the state flower and the state fish.

A little later, the Liberty Club practiced dancing in preparation for a Kiwanis Club benefit. At first, only the girls danced. But eventually, 31-year-old Roger Erlandson joined the group. He didn’t do much dancing, but he was part of the fun.

Erlandson is one of the Liberty Club’s early success stories.

When he joined the group, he couldn’t sit through movies and he always sat by himself. One day, the aura of the friendly group proved too inviting to resist. Slowly, Erlandson inched closer to the group. He did so three times, until he was part of the group. He sat with them and watched a movie—the first time his parents can ever recall him watching a full movie.

“It was an emotional moment. There were tears shed by his parents and the staff when that happened,” Noel said.

Many of the adults are friends away from Liberty Club now.

“We had a new adult in the club, and Amy (Acree) leaned over to her and said, ‘A couple of us are going to watch a movie at my place Saturday night. Come join us,’” Macy said. “The friendships built here mean so much. They feel welcome. They feel accepted.”

And that’s a big part of the program.

“Much of what we do here is about bonding and how we connect to everything in our life. We want to build positive connections,” said Macy, who is a functional therapist who has been a head coach in nearly every sport at the Special Olympics.

Most of the adults in Liberty Club have autism, and Macy said that the club can also help adults with Down syndrome or cerebral palsy. Families are responsible for paying for the program, which costs almost $300 a week. Noel said that Medicaid covers most of the cost for most families.

Saline-area donors have provided much of the equipment in the Liberty Club classroom.

Saline Community Education wants to partner with local businesses to help the adults get into workplaces a few hours a week. At the moment, transportation is an obstacle, and the Liberty Club is working to solve that issue.

Noel said that the ranks of the Liberty Club may increase, because the state might reduce the age until which school districts care for young adults from 26 to 21.