The Catskill Chronicle

LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY (October 21, 2012) – New Hope Community has expanded its programming and grounds to offer day habilitation services to those community members in need.

With the construction of a state-of-the-art 10,388-square-foot building known as the Living Arts Center and a new state certification, New Hope Community can now provide enriching day programming to those with intellectual and other developmental disabilities across the region. The program is ideal for those graduating from area school districts, or for those who are living at home with their families.

Along with the program, comes the expansion of the Living Arts Center, constructed over the last year and attached to the existing main building. It contains a Library Resource Room, Technology Lab, Practical Life Skills Workshop, and a Sensory Discovery Room. In the building, New Hope staff, licensed therapeutic professionals, and educators from Orange and Sullivan counties infuse the arts of music, painting, and cooking.

The design also includes a state-of-the-art theatre for teaching and entertainment. It can seat 112, while also accommodating 40 wheelchairs. Participants have the opportunity to learn all the skills of production from set design to lighting to performance. Every component of the theatre can be operated from a tablet with a touch screen so that the people supported by NHC can control every aspect of the space.

The building’s design exceeds Americans with Disability Act Compliance with additions including pneumatic doors, ceiling-mounted lifts, bariatric hi-lo tables that make the transfer of people from wheelchairs easeful and safe, motion-sensing lighting, and touch-screen computers.

New Hope Community recently celebrated the grand opening of the Living Arts Center with an official ribbon cutting and demonstration of some of the technological advancements available to participants in the all-new day program being offered at New Hope Community.

In the past, NHC day programs could only serve those who were already residentially supported by New Hope Community. With the new certification, the program can welcome community members with no existing relationship with the agency. The new facility has the potential to quadruple the number of participants served in the original day program first designed to empower 30 seniors with intellectual disabilities and/or complex medical conditions. It will also offer leisure, entertainment, and recreational space to existing participants and community groups on weekends.