It has been a busy few weeks at ASPIRO as we begin to reopen. Before the pandemic we were working on a restructuring plan that was necessary to meet the demands of our new environment. We could have never anticipated just how much that environment would be changing. Six months ago we were focused on compliance and viability and, while we always focused on safety as well, with COVID we have had to move that to the forefront of all our planning.

As many of you know, we have reopened out Stiles facility on a limited basis and so far it is going well. We have almost 40 people who have returned to work and that number will keep growing. We anticipate Dousman reopening on the 29 ^th of June with an initial crew of 24 people split across three program areas. The changes at Stiles have been minimal because the program lends itself well to social distancing. The changes at Dousman won’t be as subtle. We have spent the better part of the last three months planning and designing. With social distancing in mind, we have identified the number of people that can be in every room and redesigned our programs to make that work. We have shifted the managers' responsibilities around to streamline things and we have moved the service coordinators into a more programmatic role and retitled them to be program specialists. While they will retain some of their current responsibilities, they will be more focused on program provision while also continuing their liaison role.

Not only will the programs look somewhat different when people return, the building will as well. We have shifted all production out of Dousman over to Stiles and we have moved day services and recreation areas around. We will be shifting some offices as well to streamline movement and supervision.

We don’t know what the permanent new normal will look like as we coexist with COVID but we are doing our very best to create a new structure that will stand the test of time. We will continue our three tiered approach focusing on safety, compliance and viability so we can continue our mission well into the future.

Lincoln Burr

President

The annual bowling banquet held in April was postponed during Safer at Home and has now been cancelled. If you would like a refund, please fill out the online form with the link below. If you prefer to apply your 2020 payment to the 2021 event, you do not have to do anything. It will be automatically applied to next year's event.

The plaques from this year's banquet will be distributed at a later day.