Summer Brings Balance of Work and Play to the Home
The Home has been bustling with excitement this summer as the youth have been busy studying, working, and squeezing in recreation activities.
Taking a break from the traditional school day, the young men in our Inspiration Hill Residential Care Program are attending summer school only in the mornings. They are determined to keep up the momentum gained during the school year when a record-setting 368 school credits were earned, more than double the number of credits earned the previous school year.
Summer afternoons find our youth gaining employability skills and hands-on work experience through the Home’s Youth Employment Program. Youth work alongside our facilities and lawn crew weeding flower beds, hauling mulch, or mowing the lawn. Many youth are also working at the Home’s Cooper Memorial Farm.
While the youth are keeping very busy at their jobs and in the classroom, it’s not all work and studies this summer. The youth are participating in many traditional summer activities, such as fishing, swimming, gardening, barbeques and baseball games with their peers and Life Skills Teachers. Many of our youth are experiencing these fun summer festivities for the very first time.
Summer also signaled the beginning of the Home’s 69th year participating in 4-H. Several youth upheld the Home’s longstanding tradition of showing cattle and sheep at local county fairs. The youth earned excellent marks for showmanship and brought home top honors of Grand Champion Market Heifer and Grand Champion British Breed.
Thanks to supportive donors like you, we are able to offer many educational and recreational activities to the youth despite the limited learning opportunities they may have experienced in their past.