Easter Seals moved into a new building in the Dakota Square area in early January. Formerly the Enbridge building, the location brings together residential services, which had been at 800 12th Ave. SW, and employment and day program services, previously located in a building near the Easter Seals Goodwill thrift store on South Broadway.

The new building provides a bright, spacious environment better suited to the organization’s programs. The two-story building includes training rooms, offices, a staff room, craft room and two conference rooms. There’s an equipment room with donated crutches, walkers and wheelchairs that Easter Seals rents affordably to people needing the equipment.

The adult day program area includes a congregate center, a locker room and a medical bay with a medication room with exercise bed and a bedroom. A kitchen enables participants to learn cooking skills, and there’s a sensory room with strobe lights and weighted blankets and a relaxation room with games and movies.

Started last April, the day program quickly grew to about 20 individuals. The day program takes participants into the community to engage in a variety of activities, many of them volunteer-based.

Jill Schramm/MDN A large room in the new Easter Seals Goodwill building is used by day program participants and can serve the organization for a variety of congregate functions.

Tammy Updike, office assistant at Easter Seals, and her daughter, LeAnn, who participates in the day program and receives residential services, are pleased with their experiences with the organization.

“I love Easter Seals. It’s totally awesome,” LeAnn said. Through the day program, she’s helped pack meals for Meals on Wheels, worked at a soup kitchen and the Goodwill store, assisted with boxtop fundraising collections at a school and enjoyed swimming at the Minot Family YMCA.

Her favorite activity, though, is baking and cooking, and the new day program center enables her to hone her skills in its on-site kitchen.

She considers the program staff and her residential caregiver among her best friends. With her residential caregiver, she goes shopping, visits the library and does other fun activities.

Updike said her daughter is doing the traditional things that young women her age do.

“She’s come a long ways and if it weren’t for Easter Seals, she wouldn’t be where she is at right now,” Updike said. “Her staff is so wonderful. She loves them all. We have really seen the difference in her since she’s moved over to the Easter Seals program. She’s more confident about herself.”

Satisfaction of families like the Updikes is an important component of the accreditation held by Easter Seals Goodwill through the Council of Quality Leadership.

Another program of Easter Seals started in August 2017 and provides employment opportunities to people with disabilities.

Derek Hanson, director of vocational services for Easter Seals Goodwill in Minot, said the organization has a pool of employees with various skills. Their abilities could be anything from housekeeping to computer skills.

“What we try to focus on is what ability do they have and how can that ability best serve that business,” he said. “The people that we help or support, their attendance on average is better and they tend to stay at their jobs longer. They are going to be reliable.”

Easter Seals is always looking for more job opportunities for people it supports, and businesses can potentially qualify for tax credits by employing people with disabilities. Easter Seals also can assist with training employees with disabilities and offers on-site job coaching.

“There’s a lot of different ways we can help businesses. We tend to partner with them so we are in constant communication with them,” Hanson said.

The program for which Easter Seals may be best known is its residential service. Easter Seals caregivers assist people with disabilities in their homes, and the organization offers a family care option similar to voluntary foster care for a family member with a disability. It also can provide extended home health for medically fragile children.

Easter Seals has a roster of about 150 caregivers and serves about 150 clients in the Minot region, which extends from Bottineau to Williston and as far south as New Town, Garrison and Harvey, said Becky Briggs, program services director. Statewide, the program serves between 450 and 500 clients.

“The services we provide have grown so much,” Briggs said. There were only two program coordinators 11 years ago, compared to five now in Minot, and about 90 more clients served, she said.

Clients range in age from infants to the elderly. Easter Seals caregivers can provide personal care and household assistance. For parents of children with disabilities, it might mean respite. It could be an opportunity to get away to buy groceries or attend another child’s ball game, a second pair of hands in the home for certain tasks, or it might be the only child care available while parents work due to the type of disability. Caregivers also can help transition young people with disabilities toward independence.

“When we are in the home for family support, we can be doing training – like how to pack their own lunch, wash their own hair, make a grocery list – to see if someday they are able to live on their own with support,” Briggs said.

Staff also take clients outside the home to work on skills in interacting in the community.

“What we are here to do is to serve people who need us,” Briggs said. “The mission is that Easter Seals will support people to live, work and play in the community. I just love it, and we stand by what we say. That’s what we do. I feel like we live our mission, and to me, that’s really important. It’s about the people that we support. They come first.”