On Saturday, November 16th, 2024, from 1:00 P.M. to 3:00 P.M., the Roslyn and Syosset Branch of AYLUS volunteered at a CP Nassau Group Home in Hicksville. CP Nassau has been helping individuals with disabilities since 1948. They have helped so many people through their various programs including the Group Homes where we volunteer at.
This event was the first event that the Syosset volunteers joined us. We showed them what we do at each house and demonstrated how to help each resident. While this was one of the houses with residents with some more mobility and speech disabilities, we still were able to do the fun activities with them. We started by making our Christmas-themed ornaments. We colored the ornaments and added rhinestones onto them, we created many and they all came out great! We hung them up around the house for decoration. After this, we decided to do a fall-themed arts and crafts activity. We created decorative trees with Velcro leaves, they looked great and the residents really enjoyed making them. After this, we tried to get the residents more involved by doing some musical activities. We saw that some of the residents did not like to move their hands or arms as much, so we gave them maracas and egg shakers. At first, they didn’t seem too interested, but we helped them shake them at first. Then, they started enjoying themselves more and shaking the maracas themselves. Finally, we played a game with Velcro balls and a target. The resident could not throw the ball, so instead we put the target below him and let him reach down and place the ball on the target. He enjoyed it a lot and we played for a while.
We learned that even if some of the residents seemed uninterested, we had to motivate them and try different things to get them to participate with us. We are excited that Syosset was able to join us in volunteering with CPNassau and it was great showing them what we do! Volunteering with CPNassau is always a great time and teaches us many life lessons. We can’t wait for next week.
Report: Maxim Li
Participants: Maxim Li (2 Hours, R), Michael Zhang (2 Hours, R), Elva Chen (2 Hours, S), Koaton Li (2 Hours, S), Brain Li (2 Hours, S), Kingston Lu (2 Hours, S)
R = Roslyn, S = Syosset.
