Kiwanis Club Members Enlightened by Presentation from Life Works Community
Dr. Randy Park
Club President John Derry introduced Randy Park, M.D., the board president of the Siti and Jido Park Foundation. The foundation established the Life Works Community in Denton to focus on assisting individuals with intellectual disabilities in our community.
Dr. Park introduced the foundation and Life Works Community and their activities. As an ER physician, he recognized the needs of individuals with intellectual disabilities, not only in his work, but also in a family member. After retirement from the ER, he set up the Siti and Jido Park Foundation as a vehicle to address the needs of these individuals.
In their early years, individuals with these disabilities are often taken care of by their families or state-funded organizations. When they reach the adult age of 21, there are new challenges for them to face.
Addressing these new needs is the focus of the Life Works Community. The three major areas are ISS (Individual Skills and Socialization), Employment Services, and a Group Home for life skills.
Life Works helps the clients to learn daily skills such as cooking, laundry, and others that will help them become more independent in their lives. They are also helped with their socialization skills such as communication, vocational tasks, community awareness, and others.
Clients also become involved in having jobs as a part of Employment Services. Typically, 45 clients go out daily to work at various locations in Denton as productive citizens and are furthering their skill levels by being part of the work community. Some work for private businesses and some for community improvement projects as volunteers.
The group homes, one for males and one for females, further assist the clients to enhance their life skills by being responsible for household duties and all the daily social skills to be commutative with others. This learning environment is a major step for the clients as they move into new future living arrangements or even independent living.
Life Works Community has numerous community partners that support the programs, but they are also often recipients of volunteer hours from the clients. Several Robson Ranch residents support Life Works in board member roles.
There are many opportunities for Robson residents to volunteer time to help work with the clients on their craft projects, travel assistance, and funding to help offset the costs of daily operations.
The Kiwanis Club is grateful to Dr. Park for his time to enlighten us about his incredible devotion to helping these clients live fulfilled and enriched lives.
Please see their website life.works.community for further information.
Kiwanis Club Members Hear Engaging Presentation from Denton Freedom House
Left to right: Jason Young, Greg Laffey, and Chad Eskew
Club Vice President Greg Laffey gave a heartfelt introduction to the work of Denton Freedom House and introduced Chad Eskew, who is in charge of Growth and Development at Denton Freedom House, and Jason Young.
Chad introduced himself and his life journey with addiction, culminating with his entry into the Denton Freedom House program. After completing the program, he stayed to work at Freedom House as the Growth and Development person. Chad began making presentations about Freedom House six years ago, and his first presentation was to our club, and he has visited several times since then.
Chad provided an overview of the working of Freedom House in their Men’s and Women’s Residential Discipleship Program, the Food Pantry, and their coffee house, Zera Coffee.
The Men’s program is located in Aubrey, Texas, on 18 acres of land. The current capacity is about 60 residents with 15 staff people. Residents in the program go through a six-month program, starting with discipleship classes and progressing into work programs and more life-after-addiction preparedness learning. The current completion rate for the program is 40%, which is above average for this type of program.
The Women’s program, added in 2020, follows the same residential learning routine but is currently located in a house in Denton. They just moved to a larger six-bedroom house, which will increase their capacity to 14 residents.
The Freedom House has an exciting growth plan for the 18 acres in Aubrey. Currently, the location growth is capped due to utility infrastructure limitations. They have a $6 Million Capital Drive program that would provide for the construction of a new Women’s Center, the removal of the old Men’s Center building, and the construction of a new two-story Men’s Center. This will significantly increase the capacity of Freedom House.
Freedom House also has a Food Pantry in Denton on Fort Worth Drive. The pantry is open five days a week, with clients able to come in and choose their food. The pantry serves about 125 clients a day. Last year the pantry served 4,000 clients with 550,000 pounds of food. Food for the pantry is provided from several sources, including 25 weekly pickups at local restaurants and retail food establishments. Residents of the Men’s and Women’s programs help staff the pantry. The pantry also provides food to kids in need at Braswell High School a couple of days a week.
In addition, Freedom House operates a coffee house called Zera in Denton. The coffee house provides income to Freedom House and also is a great learning experience for residents to work there in the latter part of their residential program. There is rental space available for larger group meetings, as well as an encouraging atmosphere for having coffee with friends and family.
The Robson Ranch Kiwanis Club provided Freedom House with a donation and encourages our neighbors to look into the opportunities to support the Denton Freedom House.
Links to the Freedom House websites:
zeracoffee.com