♪ [dale] oklahoma city's gonethrough a renaissance the last several years- bricktown, the canal, theriver, new buildings. a real exciting time. but during those same years we've seen an increasein homelessness, unemployment, childabuse and drug abuse. the list just goes on.
most people would considerthose just lost causes. but i see it differently. i'm dale epperson andwelcome to found causes. in the next half hourand in the weeks to come, we're going to explore somecharities in our city that have provided realsolutions to these problems. and we'll show you how youcan make a difference in the lives of theless fortunate. we've taken care of thebuildings in our city,
now let's take care ofthe soul of our city- the people. ♪♪found causes brought to you bythe joshua foundation. [dale] on this episode we'regoing to visit a non-profit thatdoesn't do fundraisers, but instead worksfor their revenue. [lavonne] dale rogers is givingher a safe place to come work and be with her peersand to earn her paycheck.
we have documents datingback to the 1940s from the group ofparents who originally started the organization,incorporated in 1953. the name dale rogers is intribute to dale evans rogers because that group of familiesthat gathered together and wanted a communityoption for their children with disabilities named the center in tributebecause of the book "angel unaware" that daleevans rogers had written
about their daughterthat she and roy had, robin, who had downs syndrome. robin died by the time shewas two, but they also, dale and roy, even intheir busy lifestyle, saw the value of loving andkeeping their child at home with them as did the parentswho started our center. the purpose muchlike teresa said is to help thoseindividuals get those skills and obtain and retainemployment in the community
and it happens in a lotof different ways. with the transitionprogram we start early, before those studentseven graduate, so it's building a lot ofthe foundational skills, for them after graduation. and once they're adultsor any other adult that we work with,it's just that, helping from thevery beginning with identifyingtheir interests,
identifying their skills,helping them find the right match in their abilitiesas well as their interests so that they can remainthere and be happy and successfulin that job. basically it's a jobtraining center for like if you have a disability andyou're not able to get a job they'll train you in thejobs that you want or need. before they really send youout there in the work force you go through a fewassessments and
assessments will help you'cause when you get out there on the real job,in the real world they expect youto know it. you know here it's like apractice but out there in the real world likeif you say you do this on a resume theyexpect you do it. and you know this isa good opportunity if you're not reallyready for the workforce that you'll get agood start here.
i guess when lisa wasabout four months old i discovered that i neededsome additional help to cope with, you know,with the problem and i found dale rogerstraining center in the telephonedirectory. and then when shegraduated from high school in i think it was '92 thenthat fall she started at dale rogersin the workshop. case management is helping toidentify particular goals
and areas for them to workon for them to develop their work skills againwith the goal of improving not only skills herein the workshop but eventually obtainingcommunity employment for many ofthem as well. um, and being generallyjust kind of a resource for their family membersif they're needing things in the community and theyjust don't know where to go or who to call, we canact as a point person
for them andhelp with that. in um the variety of ourprograms here at dale rogers, we do serve more than1,000 individuals. my daughter has attendeddale rogers since 1971. dale rogers has given hera safe, fantastic place to come work and come bewith her peers and earn her paycheck. she normally worksin prism place, which is where they makeall the acrylic awards
and so forth. she loves it there. she likes to work onthe sander and buffer and all of those machines, butif they don't have the work there for them to do then sheworks in what is called area b, which is where they have all ofthe different contract work. the revenue that weget from the state to pay for some of the serviceshas never been quite enough, but rather than um doingannual fundraising campaigns
we do uh provide like isaid the prism place, the online store and thenthrough our subcontract work. uh, again goodsand services to the communityat large. so when a company needssomething done on time, on budget andto high quality they can come to dale rogers andwe can provide that service to them and thenour folks get paid and we continue toprovide the services
that thispopulation needs. i've been workinghere like 2000. i like the work because ican live off the money. so i can have a realjob and like creature. we have very simpleone-step procedures on occasion that they'reable to do, um, but that are veryimportant to companies. we have a company namedbody coat for example, in their thermalprocessing system
that i won't evenpretend i understand, uh have to take cylindersthrough their system, out of a crate and put theminto round baskets if you will where they can then gothrough the process. so it's a matter of takingthat piece out of a crate, a box, and standing themup into the baskets so that they canbe processed. so simple one-stepprocedures to much more complex procedures suchas eti wiring harnesses
which are uh used to as part ofthe mechanism for bucket trucks for something like oge,cox communications. we do a lotof collating, packaging materialsfor people as well. mail-outs for places likeoge, blue cross blue shield. those packets you receivein the mail are in order for a reason andsomeone has to put them in that order. and we're happy to do thatand our folks do that as
part of theirpaid contract work. this is probably the firstexperience they've had with work and the ideamay be pretty abstract initially and tyingpaycheck to that and it might be the firsttime that they've done so that they've seen oh wheni work or i do this thing i earn this paycheck. and just that sense ofaccomplishment that comes with that paycheck or evenjust that finished task
that they've done thatit's not always about the amount of that paycheck,its just simply about the fact that they'veearned it and it's theirs. one of the things thatdale rogers has done over the years is to produceproducts and services to earn our own wayas an organization. so we have a spice linecalled prairie spices that is sold throughour online store as well as at thefacility here.
and that's where our folksthen take spice bottles that have been alreadyfilled with the spices and in their unique packagingsystem or packaging they go ahead and packagethat up and it's available. there's four differentflavors of the spices. uh we do haveother products on our onlinestore as well. our prism place we'vehad much longer and we do manufactureacrylic gifts and awards,
as well as simple trophies. but our folks here doall of the polishing and the sanding. acrylic is not prettywhen it comes in but it looks like glass whenits finished by our folks, so they do produce that andit's for sale wholesale and retail to the publicthrough our showroom here at the facility as well. i'm not sure i canput it in words
it means so very,very much and not only to me but itmeans so very much to lisa. it gives her, you know,something to do, something to lookforward to everyday. and then too it frees up my dayfor some of my activities, but the main thing i thinkis the peace of mind, knowing that she's ina safe environment and that the staff arevery, very dedicated and looking outfor her interests
as well asthe others'. and just, lisa's happyand she's also able to earn a small check. that means somuch to her and means quite abit to me also. probably stilllooking for a job, still doing onlineapplications struggling, uh pretty much i wouldn'tbe where i am today but it's uh say by the grace ofgod and i'm still here, so...
we spend toomuch time at home. lisa would, she likesto listen to music, listen to her radioand uh i'm afraid that's about all thatshe would do because i don't have the healthnor the energy to get out and do as much youknow as i used to do. so it wouldbe a very, i just don't wantto think about it. it would be a verysad life for lisa.
you know, becauseshe would be by herself too much. so, it's just, if wedidn't have dale rogers we couldn't survive. it means that much. sometimes you gotta thinkoutside what you know and outside thatcomfort zone that maybe you thinkall the answers have been presentedbefore but maybe not.
so, come visit us. come see what we do. take 30 minutes, 45minutes and realize that the people withdisabilities that want a job and have a job and needa job will do the job, do it well and make youand themselves proud. all work is appreciated. if they had ever comethrough and did a tour that they would see howhard these people work
on the different contractsthat they are given to do through the community and how excited they arewhen they get a paycheck. dale rogers is agreat place to work. i love dale rogers. because there'smeaning in the work. and so on the days wheni'm trying to figure out why i'm signing onemore piece of paper or reading onemore contract
or looking at one more stackof stuff on my desk to do, i can go next door ori can see the people and understand howwhat we do over here and what i do dayto day helps them accomplish whatthey want to do and it just doesn't getany better than that. i found my cause. the great people at thedale rogers center are not asking for a donation.
they'd rather workfor your business and i know from first-handexperience they do a great job and can save yourcompany money. you can also buytheir products at their online store. we've provided thelink at foundcauses.com. ♪♪just look for the dalerogers training center. ♪in just a minute we'llintroduce you to a nonprofit that's the only one ofits kind in the country.
when you get diagnosedwith a brain tumor you don't know whatyou don't know. and that's the biggestobstacle to overcome. for years the joshuafoundation has been actively engaged inthe lives of people who find themselves inthe middle of crisis. whether that crisis isphysical, financial, relational, mentalor spiritual, that's why the joshuafoundation exists-
to provide support forindividuals and families during difficult times. we've helped duringnatural disasters like tornados and hurricanesas well as assistance with medical bills, food, clothing,shelter and transportation. restoring hope,restoring lives. that is thejoshua foundation. ♪♪ it was july 10, 2007, i wasuh mowing my yard you know
just like any normal15-year-old kid would do on a summer day, outpush mowing my yard. i felt fine, didn't haveany problems or anything and asked my mom can youget me an ibuprofen, i have a little headachebut i should be fine. well, uh, she went in andwhen she came back out i had passed out. i had been laying, i waslaying beside the mower. so we couldn't get him tocome to, so we called 911.
they took him over tologan medical center and he stayed unconscious andfinally they did a cat scan and they found the grape-sized tumor in his brain. he finally gotdiagnosed officially on october 19last year. before i know it they dida cat scan and another one wheeling him out of thereand all of a sudden they told me okay we haveto medi-flight him, he's already gone and anotherdoctor just hands me a map
to the ou and iwas like what? everything was chaotic. and they like itcould be something, it could be nothing but your sonis already in the helicopter. well i kind of describeit being in a dark room searching for thelight switch, that's what it felt liketrying to find resources and help and support. i didn't meet anotherfamily who had a
child with a brain tumor untilright before my son passed and um that i feltvery alone and scared and trying to findsomebody who could help and provide me withinformation and uh just support mein my decisions. and the information wereceived while we were at the hospital was forleukemia, and leukemia and brain tumors are verydifferent diseases. i had no ideawhat was going on.
though i wasgoing to lose my son. i left the hospitaltwice because i was, made to leave thehospital because it was just physicallymaking me sick. because i couldn't, as a mother you want toalways take the pain away, you know make thingsbetter and i couldn't. it was very hard. so at that point actuallyalready know that yeah,
my son has cancer you didn'teven have to tell me. on the 20th um we startedchemo on that same night i signed the papers becausei said i did not want to waste any time 'causeit's really important that we startright away. well we're an organizationthat i started 11 years ago after my youngestson cade passed. he was diagnosed whenhe was six weeks old. and he passed when hewas about 16 months.
and all of our programsand services i developed out of my own experiencesof when my son was sick. and really want tobe a beacon of hope for families like ours sothat they don't have to go through those trials andthose challenges by themselves, um like we did. what we do is we workdirectly with the patients, we meet them whetherit be in the hospital, our facility or their home.
we get to know everybody,get to know the patient and we set up a, we assess, we have a family needsassessment thing that we kind of do and we address their needsin an order that we feel is a priority for themand for the patient and so we don't just focuson just the patient, we actually work withthe family as a whole. um, kinda like asocial worker,
but it's just forbrain tumor patients. actually we didn't hear aboutthe brain tumor foundation till the last day of rehab. and my sisterhad found out from one of hergood friends. and they got ahold ofnancy and nancy brought jason white up to see shilohthe last day of rehab and shiloh doesn'tremember that. he remembers a lot of whatwe told him that happened
throughout the wholesix weeks and three days. but once we got incontact with the oklahoma brain tumorfoundation, they're amazing. we got um given a wholebunch of booklets you know and um i was going throughthem and one of them was the brain tumorfoundation. they came to us probablyabout a month or two after he'd been diagnosed, herhusband is not always home, he's in the military.
he was gone, three times,he did three tours and he's gonna be gonethis year again. he injured his back in'04 and he got out of the humvee andhad his spine fused. they've reallysupported our family. just like mental support,getting through this, trying to understand whathappened, what it is, why it happened. they've helped withshiloh's disability.
there's really a bunchof support not only like emotionally butalso financially. um, since we didexcessive chemo, meaning every twoand a half weeks, we had to come to oklahomacity and in that time frame we had um our wages garnishedso we had zero paychecks. so francis was ableto get us a grant so we have beenable to travel. i called itour chemo money.
i deal directly with theprivate pay, uninsured and the medicare clients soi have a wide variety of needs goes fromfinancial assistance because of the uninsured they don't have anymedical insurance to um finding medicaldoctors who will see them to food pantries,counseling services, medical equipment,especially for our elderly that have brain tumorsthey don't a lot of them
can't afford wheelchairsand medical equipment and things like that, so... you go from overnight being whatyou considered as much normal as you can be being a normalfamily with normal issues, to being in the hospitaland having brain surgery in a matter of hours i mean your life isturned upside down. and then you're facingall these challenges and you don't knowwhere to go.
a lot of parents havelost their jobs due to having to miss so much workand it's not necessarily employer's fault theyjust follow regulations like any other employer andthey focus on their child, bills get piled upbecause a lot of the times whenever they are sufferingfrom a severe brain tumor brain cancer nobody wantsto open their mail, no one wants to dealwith bill collectors so they push all that to theside so all it does is build
and collect so what wetry to do is step in and take care of some ofthat burden and help them finding financialassistance for them, finding someone that's gonnacover their medical care, so it's a little easierfor them to take care of the patient andnot be so worried about everything else. and the reality is thatour organization is really the onlyorganization that provides
direct patient servicesum and assistance for a specific diseasepopulation of patients. so while we focus on braintumors we're the only organization in the unitedstates that's providing direct patient servicesto brain tumor patients. some of them can't affordto pay the $1500 co-pay that they need to to havean mri every three months a lot of these kids are havingmri's every 3 months that's $3,000that's $6,000 in a year
so, it's not somethingsomeone can just fish out on on a regular basis, and that's includingthe $900 to $1,000 that you're paying foryour medication um when you don'thave insurance. and when you do you'restill paying two, three hundred dollarsfor your chemo medicine at a time for amonth's supply. when you're diagnosedwith a brain tumor,
and, being able togive them information and resources andeducate them regarding treatment options reallyempowers them to go out and to ask really goodquestions of their physicians and their doctors and to expectmore and to get second opinions and to look intoother research options. they've helped us outtremendously you know they have the counseling ifyou need somebody to talk to, like me i talk to hisname's rob i talk to him
once or twice a week. you know nancy isgreat to talk to... the biggest thing we haveright now are funding. um, you know the last coupleyears with the economy the way it's been, it'sbeen really difficult for non-profits especiallyin the state of oklahoma here recently. our donations havebeen down like 52% and when you're, the thingabout our organization is
we are not under the umbrellaof any national organization so we are completelyindependent and dependent on oklahoma for support. they're just amazing,they need you know, they're not forprofit organization. and they help, you know,mentally help people with just talking you know and they help withthe social security. the social securityadministration is so hard
to try to get yourchild disability, there's so much paperwork and there's so many people totalk to and they help. you know theyhave fundraisers. these kids they helped ourchildren with christmas. you know the year shiloh hadhis brain tumor surgery if it hadn't been for thebrain tumor foundation my family would nothave had a christmas. they're just amazingpeople i can't say enough
good about them. i get up every morningand go do this because i want to be a, continueto be a beacon of hope for families who are hurtingand i know that this is what god has called meto do and it's not always easy and there are times whenit's really challenging and times when you getreally frustrated you know when you're tryingto beat on these doors and raise money forfamilies who are hurting
and it seems like a no-brainerto me that you know people should be busting downthe doors to be able to provide help and hopefor these families. and but i know at theend of the day we make a difference inthese families' lives. uh i know that we'reimpacting their lives in considerable,exponential ways. i know that not onlyare we increasing their quality of life, but we'realso increasing their
ability to survivethis disease. and what did you tell them? to kick the cancers... booty. as you can see a braintumor affects families in many ways. the oklahoma braintumor foundation is the only one of itskind in the country and would like tohelp more people,
but they needyour support. to find out how todo that just go to foundcauses.com. you've just witnessedreal solutions to real problems, but inorder to improve our city you have to get involved. so keep watching eachweek and find a cause that you can connect to. 'cause no matterwho you are,
you can makea difference. and remember along the way,someone has helped you, so now you can pay backand change a life. after all, you canbe the answer to someone's prayer. and then you willhave found your cause. ♪♪captioning bycritical mass productions www.cmpedge.com
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