Community Connections Life
The priviledge of a lifetime is to become who you truly are -C.G. Jung
Culinary Connections
DAY-HAB PROGRAMS
"A FOUNDATION FOR IMAGINATION"
These exciting programs are part of a highly detailed and individualized Day-Hab. In our very own restaurant in Pelham, NY, and at JoJo’s Java and Espresso Bar in Mt. Kisco. It is community inclusion at its best and your real-life classroom. Through this person centered frame work we have created a place where you can define your area of interest. Various activities, indoors and out in the community, are all designed to reveal to you your potential.
A Café Life
JoJo’s Java & Espresso Bar
This is Community Integration and socialization at its finest. It’s a setting that offers full access to the community. Participants will have the opportunity to “show their stuff” in a real working environment, volunteering to practice the various components of customer service. Not only may you have the opportunity to make the coffee, espresso, cappuccino or latte, but to serve the customer all the way through the point of sale system. A great opportunity to engage in the type of behavior that is professionalism.
The Barista Program
Is designed to foster several skills. Participants will come away from these barista classes thrilled at their new learning on a real-life professional Espresso Machine. You’ll feel confident making, espressos, cappuccinos, lattes and all the classic espresso-based drinks as well as cleaning and maintaining the precious equipment. Participants will feel comfortable inviting friends to their homes and holding a coffee event!
A Baker's Life
The Baking Studio
The Baking Studio will expose you to the ideas and practices of baking pastries, cakes, cupcakes, pies, scones and whatever else you may like. We visit coffee shops all over Westchester and beyond, as well as bake for our very own. Delectable, delicious, and diabolically diverse delights will be your Baking Studio experience.
The Baking Studio Sales Events
Another community engaging opportunity, the baking studio sales events is where participants help sell cakes and prepare all items for sale. Participants work the Baking Studio sales desk which provides all manner of community interaction. Our European based cake recipes have earned The Baking Studio a reputation for “not-to-sweet,” homemade deliciousness. Participants have cakes named after them, Jen’s “Coconut Strut” Cake, Emily’s “Red Hot” Red Velvet, Troy’s “Oh Boy” Oreo Cake. Ellen Culhane’s “Cairéad” Carrot Cake, Mousy’s Chocolate Raspberry Mouse Cake, Patsy’s Sour Cream and Apple Pecan Crumble. Senorita Sonia’s Tres Leches Cake and Lynn’s Lemon Berry Mascarpone Cake and many many many more.
A Diligent Life
Restaurant Restoration & Renovation Team
A thorough restaurant cleaning training program in all manners of off hours “restoration and revitalization” to prepare restaurants for evening or lunch service. A voluntary practicum that leads to establishing life skills for the workplace and daily living. Also, a great opportunity to make new friends.
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Work for a Cause Not for Applause”
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The Biz Team
Want to expand upon your work doing your own ledgers? Volunteers for this Internship level program are given greater independence and will acquire skills that help retention and optimize autonomy and relationship building at the same time. Interns will work both independently and within a group doing inventory, monitoring daily sales, and pricing out items for JoJo’s Java & Espresso Bar, as well as JoJo’s “Back Door” Café in Mt. Kisco. You will learn how many cups of coffee are made from a pound of beans, how much they cost and how many we sold that day.
A Musician's Life
The Recording Studio
(Make your own CD)
This is the place to perform and record your very own CD. Choose your song or we’ll help you to write your own. Put on the headphones, step into the recording booth, up to the mic and let your soul fly. We will help you every step of the way, and you’ll leave with a professional recording and your very own CD!
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“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” Plato
The Guitar Studio
Guitar Dave will lead you through all the steps to aquire the skills to play the guitar. In your group you will learn chords, fingering and strumming to play on your own. But most importantly you will be building relationships. So far 5 Guitar studio musicians have chosen to purchase their own guitars. Inspiration meets Independence!
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“Revealing to you your Potential”
A Funshop Life
An Artists Life
Movie Lover’s Funshop
In this super fun funshop we will select a category (or genre) of movies together. We will discuss themes and plot and share our interpretations and feelings about the movies. We’ll see them both in the theaters and in our screening room. We’ll select movies just out of the theaters in case you missed that one.
The Paint and Sip Funshop
Participants will be provided with their own easel and paper and paints and survey different aspects of sketching, drawing, shading and painting.
Hip-Hop Dance
Disco Funshop Dancercise
From hip hop to disco and all manners of freestyle, we’re using dance to exercise in disguise! So bring your dancing shoes, sneakers, dress in comfy clothes, get your groove on and let it show!
A Chef's Life
BBQ Sauce Funshop
Grilling Funshop
Plating & Food Design
In this survey of delectable dishes, we will discuss and practice healthy and delicious meals you can make at home. Join us in our professional restaurant kitchen and prepare and cook life changing meals to live healthier, longer lives, and share our knowledge with others.
A Travelin' Life
Community Connections Research adventures
Our research adventures have taken us from Coffee shops in Brooklyn to Bistros in Provincetown on Cape Cod. These trips are free of charge and intended to expose us to broader experiences well beyond our explorations of greater Westchester. They can be overnight or even two or three nights. Puzzles in Albany, NY, BeanZ & Co., Avon CT. and The Riverview Café in Sandwich, MA are café’s that engage intellectually disabled adults and prime examples of just such Community Connection & More Adventure destinations.
An Industrious Life
Pelham Patio Café and Markets:
We are opening The Café in Pelham and out the French doors to the patio you will find our market stands set up, perfectly socially distanced. We are talking serious FFB! Farming, Fragrance and Bling! Oh, and we must set up a Baked goods stand, no market would be complete without one. Especially with a Board of Health approved kitchen not but twenty steps away!
The Farmers Stand:
From our fruit and vegetable garden in Pound Ridge and Winslow Farm we’ll harvest onions, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, red, yellow, orange and green bell peppers, pumpkins, watermelon, thyme, basil, oregano, fresh mint and tons of other items like blueberries strawberries and melons provided they all ripen properly. It looks promising as we do see a green thumbnail that we hope turns into a full-blown green thumb!
The Fragrance Stand:
Developing skills that they can apply in their real lives, studying and engaging in the practice of soap and candle making, will edify and inspire our men and woman to make great aroma’s for body and soul! Brighten up a room with an exotic scented candle or refresh you skin with fragrant soaps. Scents that make sense in a perfectly sensory world.
The Bling Stand:
For some time now our participants have chosen to make their own jewelry of all kinds from numerous materials. A simple request had Community Connections Life invest in this inventive and creative idea proposed by one of our participants. The enthusiastic proposal was undeniable and the full weight of the program’s support. Necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings are some of the most prominent items for people of all ages to beautify themselves and their surrounding with glorious bling!
The Baker's Corner:
What farmers market would be complete without freshly Baked goods, from old fashioned apple pies to blueberry, strawberry rhubarb, pumpkin, pecan, and others. All of which we hope to create from what we’ve grown in the garden for an unimaginable freshness. Scones, muffins, honey butter biscuits and fresh home-made jelly donuts! Can you smell the Homebaked Breads?
A Country Life
Pound Ridge Cottage & Gardens – Pound Ridge, NY
In the outlands of the historical town of Pound Ridge lies “The Pound Ridge Cottage and Gardens.” This picturesque Cottage is designed solely for our Day-Program participants to play and produce. The Cottage is where we will make jams and jellies, candles and soaps. A place where we can clean, wash, and prepare our vegetables for market. After all, the vegetable gardens are right out the front door. The Garden consists of 15 rows of planting soil 25 feet long and 6 feet wide with grass walkways between them to make it easy for weeding and harvesting. This year we planted 4 types of tomatoes, red, yellow, orange and green bell peppers, zucchini squash and yellow squash, onions and scallions, eggplant, pumpkins and watermelon. We have planted raspberries, black berries, blueberries and strawberries. It is with these we hope to make our pies and scones and decorate our cakes. But the most resonant piece is that it is ours. We will work at it and play at it, there is plenty of room for a recording studio upstairs should we so choose. The possibilities are as endless as our imaginations and there are many places on the property where we can grow; both literally and figuratively.
The Westbrook
A Coastal Farmhouse in Westbrook VCT. with a swimming pool and pond is our next great adventure. The Westbrook is a quaint country estate devoted to various activities provided for the day program. There is country kitchen to bake goods and practice new recipes. A patio, shaded by tall Maples and Oaks, overlooking the inground pool and pond to BBQ and grill and test our cooking skills. Share meals on the patio or in The Westbrook Dining room where old and new merge with a rustic modern décor fit for our kings and queens. There are living rooms for visual learning and group spacing for all comers.
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The beach is a mile away where we stroll the sands, hike and swim and picnic as we choose. The Homestead is our retreat house. We can run business overnights there, day trip celebrations, spend time at the beach or in the water and spend time together with plenty of room for social distancing all the while communing together.
