META HEMENWAY-FORBES | For One Vision

One Vision Chief Development Officer Janet Johnson frequently stops by Cheryl Lackore’s office with one request: “Tell me a success story!”

Lackore’s response is always the same: “How much time do you have?”

As One Vision’s Community Integration Coordinator, Lackore could spend hours telling success stories for dozens of persons served. Some of the stories bring tears to her eyes. For instance, this past Memorial Day when an individual traveled more than two hours to put flowers on his parents’ and grandparents’ graves. He hadn’t been there since 2006.

“If that doesn’t make you cry, I don’t know what does,” Lackore said.

And then there’s the story of a person who wanted to hang out at the VFW and enjoy a beer. And the jubilance of an individual who went bowling for the first time. And another who became a volunteer at the Humane Society of North Iowa.

One Vision’s Community Integration team’s mission is to support individuals’ participation in “activities you and I would take for granted,” simple things like paying your respects to your parents on Memorial Day.

The Community Integration team aims to provide people with disabilities opportunities for community participation in leisure, recreational, spiritual, and cultural activities. Volunteerism and collaboration with other community organizations are also part of the program.

“This provides them with the ability to become successful members of their communities,” Lackore explains. “Community participation has proven to provide a better quality of life socially, mentally and physically.”

At its essence, the program is about persons served being active, included members of their community. It’s been up and running since January 2022. Previously, these services were available to 26 clients via a day habilitation program that ended in December 2021 due to regulatory changes.

Lackore knew she had to find a way to continue and expand services.

“I take great pride in working out a new program so we could do it. We were given six months to prove it could be done. We’re two years in and to-date we are serving over 120 people. It’s pretty incredible. I can’t say enough about the impact we’ve made.”

Among clients’ favorite activities are restaurant outings with former cottage housemates.

“We’re trying to reconnect and rebuild those friendships, provide those social interactions with people they no longer see every day,” Lackore says.

Other big hits are going to stock car races in Mason City, basketball games, movies, and plays. There was even a trip to the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines.

“We take them where they want to go,” Lackore says.

Many of the clients find fun in volunteering. Several volunteer at local nursing homes, playing cards and singing with residents, and ringing bells at the holidays to raise money for the Salvation Army is a seasonal favorite. They find fun in competing to see who can raise the most money in the red kettles.

Volunteerism is a win-win activity for the individuals and non-profit organizations, Lackore notes.

“We have a gentleman we have worked with for a number of years who had extreme social anxiety. We worked with him in small steps to get him out and about. He didn’t like to leave his house or bedroom. Now he volunteers once a week at United Way helping with their mailings.”

One client asked to volunteer at a suicide prevention walk, and another wanted help purchasing and delivering household items to families who had been through a devastating fire at an apartment building.

It’s stories like these that have kept Lackore at One Vision for 27 years.

“It’s hard not to get emotional when you hear these stories. Everybody needs to feel valued, like they are a part of something.”