Excitement and noises fill the air of ADEC these days.
With the exception of residential homes, there’s been an unfamiliar silence around ADEC for over two months now.
The only sound in the day centers, usually bustling with noise and activity, has been the sound of dust falling. Today there is staff reconfiguring, cleaning and getting those spaces ready to throw their doors back open to clients. Where two weeks ago you could hear a pin drop, today you may hear a vacuum cleaner’s whirr or table legs being dragged across the floor when you enter.
There is a steady flow of activity in ADEC’s administration building which has often functioned at less-than-full capacity depending on the nature of the roles performed there.
The vehicular fleet that has sat idle in parking lots, engines silent, is getting all tuned up and ready to roll through Elkhart County again on Monday.
Everywhere you look around ADEC, safety-related signage is being hung, furniture is being moved and comprehensive reopening policies and procedures crafted over months of time are leaping forth off of their paper and coming to life.
This upcoming Monday morning, for much of ADEC, the time to press the unpause button will have arrived.
“It is truly wonderful and exciting to see all the effort we have been putting in place to welcome back our clients and community about to happen for real,” said ADEC’s president and CEO Donna Belusar. “There has been so much hard work, thoughtfulness and care about everyone’s safety and wellbeing put into our reopening strategy so they can come back into ADEC. #TeamADEC has been putting in its heart and muscle, a lot of hard hands-on work over the past week implementing the changes. I know there will be a wonderful outcome from all of this – simply our mission of providing choice and possibility will again be open to families. I look forward to seeing our clients again.”
Things will be different. You can only be close to normal when close has to be formally defined as six feet. But, even at a couple arms’ lengths apart, Belusar, and all of #TeamADEC, will be seeing our clients again next week and that is some of the most exciting news we’ve heard in months.
