Open House CDC Resources

On Thursday CDC Resources had an open house at their Rensselaer offices to acquaint the public with what services it offers to developmentally disabled adults. Their office is located at the east end of Angelica Street. Because it is not a place you pass by to get to another place, many people may not know it is there.

Also located there is the Treasure Keepers preschool, run by the Tri-County Bible Church. CDC-Resources began as an organization serving children with developmental disabilities, and until recently it had a preschool called PlayScape. However, it found that a church group was able to offer the same services more economically than it could--a church run preschool is subject to different regulations. Treasure Keepers rents space from CDC Resources.

 Snacks for the open house were provided by Strack & Van Til, Save-A-Lot, Subway, and CDC Resources.

 Everyone got a tour of the facilities. There are offices for some of the divisions of CDC, such as Supported Living Services, which goes into the homes to provide services, Heartland Employment Services, which cooperates with the State of Indiana to help disabled people find employment, and the Rest Park Attendant Services, which keeps the two nearby rest stops on I-65 clean. (They have a sense of humor--their office has a sign that says "Janitor Closet."

A project that is in process is the development of an exercise room. It has most of the needed equipment, but still needs a TV and some other items. The Monticello office has a very successful fitness center, and the goal is to provide the consumers and staff in Rensselaer with something similar.

 For me the most interesting part of the tour was their workshop. One project that they have is packaging dry-wall tape. They start with stacks of cardboard boxes that have to be assembled.

 They also have boxes of spools of tape.

 Their workforce assembles the boxes and puts a dozen rolls of tape in each.

 The finished product looks like this. The work is done for the National Gypsum plant in Rensselaer.

 In another workroom work is done constructing shipping boxes for Emerson Electric. Part of this work is done in the workshop in Monticello and part is done in Rensselaer.

 I do not know what they ship in these boxes, but the relationship between CDC Resources and Emerson Electric has lasted for several years.