Grants Aid Upcoming Adult Achievement Center

by Jonathan Weaver

More than $3,000 in grants received last week will help the Progressive Workshop of Armstrong County hopefully open its new Adult Achievement Center at the beginning of 2017.

Chief Executive Officer Michelle Reefer said the organization received $3,500 in grants during the annual Community Foundation Serving the Heart of Western Pennsylvania dinner last week.

“We’re in the process of getting a new program licensed, so we asked for money for curriculum for that program,” Reefer said. “We just have to decide which one now that we want to use.”

The organization formed in 1968 to provide vocational rehabilitation services for people with disabilities became interested in opening the new day training facility after conversation with officials from the Armstrong-Indiana Behavioral and Developmental Health Program.

“That was kind-of a conversation starter, and then I thought ‘We can do this,’” Reefer said. “(The Adult Achievement Center) is going to be specifically for 18-30 year olds who aren’t ready to come into a work setting yet that need those soft skills, like how to interact with people. We’re also going to teach some life skills, too to help them perhaps someday be able to live on their own.

“It’s pretty exciting. I’m hoping January 1 we’re ready to open the doors on it.”

The program is to be maintained at the former-Care-O-Sel Child Care along Butler Road in West Kittanning once updates and licensing is achieved and would employ a handful of new employees.

The center will be initially led by Vice President of Programs and Compliance Kim Savoie – who began at the Progressive Workshop in August.

“Michelle’s very infectious, and prays on my weakness of loving to create things and starting things – sort-of dropping hints here-and-there but never in a matriarch sense. So, we work well as a team,” Savoie said.

“Once we get licensed, I think we’ll catch fire and get everything and that will set us afloat to say ‘Hey, this is going to happen.’”

Savoie said additional skills at the new center will include how to relate to people, dress for success and other educational achievement skills.

Vice President of Administration Karen Waugaman said the rehabilitation department operated a career center for about five years on the opposite corner of Oak and Johnston Avenues, but is excited for the new center as well, and thought it would be an extra component that will only help current clients succeed further.

Reefer hoped the Adult Achievement Center would be licensed for 30 clients at a time.

Indiana County Workshop is also reportedly trying to open a similar program in Indiana, Pa.

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