Our May 🌼 2022 News is Here for You

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MAY 2022 E-NEWSLETTER

A MESSAGE FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Greetings Friends of Vocational Visions,

I hope you’ve all had the chance to see our announcement about Tim Chervenak who will begin his service as Vocational Visions’ Executive Director on July 1, 2022. I’ve known and worked with Tim for many years, and I know he is the right person to lead Vocational Visions to new heights!

I’ve been blessed to have a great team around me over the last few years. They’ve contributed greatly to Vocational Visions’ success and have certainly made my job easier. My heartfelt gratitude goes out to:

Tracey Bailey, Accounting Supervisor
Romaldo Escobedo, Facilities and Equipment Manager
Venturis Jones, HR Manager
Laura Martinez, Emeritus & DTAC Alambre Program Manager
Atrem Behmanesh, ADP Program Manager
Sunny Leos, HRS Program Manager
Melody Downey, Clubhouse Supervisor
Chelsae Mansfield, DTAC Pala Program Manager
Micheline Swan, Supported Employment Manager
Amy Gill, Marketing Project Manager

I also want to thank the Vocational Visions Board of Directors for their dedication, support and leadership! They are a committed group of volunteers, and I am thankful to have worked together with them to fulfill our mission.

My work with, for, and on behalf of people with disabilities has spanned 44 years and I hope I’ve made a difference in the lives of the people we serve. But truth be told, they have made the difference in my life! They taught me about perseverance; trying your best no matter the challenges; and most of all unconditional acceptance of others. I’m so grateful for these blessings and lessons.

Thanks for reading and best wishes!

EMAIL JOAN

THE BEMENT KIDS BRING SUNSHINE TO VV

In this issue, we would like to introduce you to the Bement kids. VV was fortunate to connect with mom Sherrie at the 2022 OSO Fit 5K Fun Run in February. Sherrie and her family believe in sharing love and optimism with others. Because Sherrie's mother is a caregiver to Sherrie's adult brother, Sherrie understands the effort and challenges that go into being a caregiver for an adult with special needs. This is what drew her to our organization.

Sherrie and her husband David have four very talented children. Their names are Serena, Scarlett, Sadie and David. Serena, Scarlett and Sadie are triplet girls who are 12 years old and just finishing up the 7th grade. Their younger brother David is 10 years old and in the 4th grade. They had the idea to do something special for some of our VV mom caregivers in honor of Mother's Day because, as Sherrie explains, 'these moms are heroes and deserve special recognition."

Each VV Program Manager had the task of choosing 2 VV moms who are primary caregivers to VV participants. These names were provided to the Bement family and they went to work, each child writing their very own thoughtful Mother's Day message in a specially selected card and tying pink bows on the beautiful bottled soaps they purchased as small tokens of appreciation. Here is a picture of the kids on delivery day.

VV made sure the items were delivered to the moms in time for Mother's Day and we have some neat pictures to share of some of our mom's receiving their gifts. It's amazing what the kindness of strangers can do to brighten a person's day.

Mother's Day has come and gone but the Bement kids aren't done yet. They have committed to making special birthday greetings each month for 10 of our participants who will be selected by our Program Managers. Additionally, they made beautiful cards of condolences for families and participants who were identified as having lost a loved one recently.

When we met the children, they wanted to learn more about what we do at VV. They asked a lot of great questions. And we asked some questions of them as well. It turns out that, like most young people, they are busy with activities like swimming and volleyball. They are also very goal oriented and already know what careers they want to pursue which include dermatology medicine, veterinary medicine and engineering.

As busy as they are, thanks to the guiding light of their caring parents, these children will continue to make the time to help others. We are blessed that their passion found our organization. Thank you Bement kids for spreading joy and love to our participants and families.

EMPOWERING POSSIBILITIES OC

FUNDRAISER RESULTS

MAY 11, 2022

24 HOURS

13 OUTSTANDING ORGANIZATIONS

1 AMAZING CAUSE ❤️

We were honored to be invited to participate in the annual Empowering Possibilities online giving day on May 11, 2022 along with 12 other organizations in Orange County who support people with disabilities.

VV Board of Directors Vice-Chair Hilary Hurt's company (Electron Beam Engineering, Inc in Anaheim) generously offered VV a $5,000 match opportunity. We set our goal at $15,000. Donations came in fairly slow initially and we realized we were going to run out of time without qualifying officially for all of the match opportunity. We kicked it into high gear and our donors came through in the end. We're thankful for the extra window of time that was opened up to receive donations. While we didn't achieve our original goal, we did qualify for our entire match opportunity and had a total of 40 donors which is marvelous. VV raised a total of $11,690 thanks to our awesome donors.

Across all 13 organizations, we set a collective goal to raise $150,000. We closed out the fundraiser just surpassing this goal by raising $150,906 collectively. All in all, it was a very successful fundraiser.

ENCHANTED EVENING

ALL WE NEED IS LOVE

SEPTEMBER 17, 2022

We can't believe that it has been almost three years since we were last able to hold our Enchanted Evening gala fundraiser event due to the pandemic.

We are excited to say that we are on track to come together once again this fall. On Saturday, September 17, 2022, we will be hosting "All We Need is Love", a wonderful evening of dinner, socializing, performances and live and silent auctions at the Hyatt Regency John Wayne Airport (same place we held our event in 2019).

This year, we are working with a company called Auctria to automate some of the processes which should prove to be more convenient for many of our guests and a timesaver for our organization. Starting now, you may go to this website to reserve your ticket(s) for this event. You may even purchase now or select the option to pay later. You have the option to select your meal choice and seating preferences as well. Later on, we will have previews of our auction items on this website for you to review before the event. However, all bidding will be done in person during the actual event. There will be no online bidding.

If you are excited like we are, check out our partner website by clicking on our EE logo on the home page of our website at www.vocationalvisions.org or simply click here to go right to the Auctria event site.

ourfundraiser.link/Enchanted2022

Note that email confirmations for reservations and purchases will come to you from our Auctria partner (not from Vocational Visions). Vocational Visions has access to all orders placed on our Auctria site.

If you prefer to do things the old way, don't worry, we can still accommodate that too. Look for our 'Save the Date' reminders in your mailboxes in June.

We can't wait to celebrate with you!