Last & Final Day

Today, spring greeted us with a snow storm as we finished our last day of service. TCC gave us the choice to either attend the group programs or spend time with some of the residents that we created especially strong bonds with. Most of us chose to play games with the whole group during the morning, not ready to say individual goodbyes.
For lunch, TCC ordered pizza from Nick's, the same place we had gone the night before, coincidentally. We gorged yet again on some of New York's best pizza, and received certificates from Tom McDonald thanking us for coming. Our Experience Leader Helen took pictures of each of us like the proud grandma she is.

After lunch, one of the therapists gave us a tour of the "specialty unit," where the disabled children are treated. TCC is somewhat unique because the patients in this unit don't "age out;" some of the patients stay into their forties. Although seeing the children was immensely sad, it was interesting to see how they live. Some of the children are capable enough to leave the hospital for school, and there were specialized therapy/play rooms where the children can get sensory stimulation. We toured the area during their nap time, so didn't interact with the children, but the tour was beneficial in helping us understand what TCC does and how disabled children receive care.

Finally, what we were all dreading: goodbyes. We each went off on our own for the last few hours of our day to spend some final time and say goodbye to the residents who touched us the most. I was able to finish a drawing I had been working on with a resident all week. After many hugs and a few tears, we were ready to leave TCC, each with the contact information we'll need to write letters or visit next time we're in New York. We walked back to the subway in the snow, checking out beautiful Central Park on our way.

In the evening, the group went to a Thai restaurant for the celebration dinner. Unfortunately, I was not feeling well and stayed behind, but Stephen (my co-blogger for today) went!
~Celeste

On Tonight's Edition of ASB-NYC...

Hi all! This is Aastha blogging to you live from NYC.

Today marked our second-to-last day servicing the Terrence Cardinal Center in the East Bronx. It started off as normal, with a quick breakfast at the Jan Hus church in the Upper East Side and a subway ride to the TCC. During our first two hours at the center, we worked with residents to create different art projects. The woman Crissy and I sat with painted a small jewelry box for herself, while other residents assembled and decorated bobblehead puppies. By 12pm, the lounge had been overtaken by Dalmatians, black labs, Clifford lookalikes, and a lone sphinx.

After lunch, the Maryland crew and the building residents relocated to the auditorium, where we took part in the TCC’s weekly karaoke party. Song choices ranged from Elvis to R. Kelly, with plenty of throwbacks from the decades in between. Much to our surprise, a few participants even decided to sing their tunes a cappella! The display of talent culminated in UMD crooning along to “A Thousand Miles” by the one and only Vanessa Carlton – I’ll spare you the video, but the residents still loved it.

The day at TCC ended with a game of bingo and trivia, hosted by local high school students. The gentleman I was working with won the blackout round – even though he had a disability that kept him from speaking, I could sense pure joy radiating from him when I shouted his win.

After heading back from TCC, we went to an UMD alumni dinner at Nick’s Pizza on the Upper East Side. We met up with two alums – Ariel, a lawyer, and Derrick, vice president of the Carlyle Group in NYC -- along with Marsha, director of the Stamp Student Union at UMD. The conversation was interesting (to say the least… I don’t know if our group will look at alpacas the same way again), the food amazing (four stars on Yelp, every bit deserved), and the whole experience extremely memorable. Shoutout to Ariel and Derrick for taking the time to meet with us and treating us to the classiest pizza I’ve had (and probably will ever have) in the city.

Tomorrow will be our last day at TCC – make sure to check back with us soon!

- Aastha

TCC and Nick's Pizza

This has been a great week.  And a challenging one. And emotional. And thought-provoking, frustrating, joyful, heartbreaking, inspirational…and, hopefully, meaningful in the long run.  As the staff advisor to this AB trip, my role is unique – I didn’t plan the trip, nor I am not a student participant. I offer advice, engage fully, and besides some logistics tasks (money, receipts, etc.), I do a lot of connecting, helping, and observing.

Today was spent with our primary partner, the Terrance Cardinal Cook Health Care Center. Others have already given you a rundown on what TCC is and who the residents are, so I won’t belabor that point. Today was pretty straightforward – arts and crafts with the residents in the morning, lunch, and then karaoke and bingo in the afternoon.  I want to share some of my experiences in the last couple days and some bigger questions that I am thinking about…

•          Residents who have dementia from the HIV virus live on a special wing, which is monitored for egress so they don’t wander off.  They are a special group – you may hear some of the same stories from them over and over, and they are very sweet.  But, I noticed that sometimes staff (and to be honest, us) sometimes infantilize them. They are adults with opinions and thoughts, but because they are somewhat childlike, do we diminish their ability to be full partners in their treatment?
•          At karaoke, one of the residents sang a beautiful acapella version of “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady, dedicated to two of our students, Celeste and Hannah.
•          Most of my conversations with residents has been about their family and their backgrounds (and with a few, a review of old great discos in NYC like The Saint and Studio 54), but oddly (or is it odd?) enough, not about HIV or AIDS.  Of course, I know they are living with HIV/AIDS, but it hasn’t come up. Not once. And I don’t think it has for any of our students either. Maybe it will tomorrow on our last day…maybe it won’t.  But it is SO central to their lives…after all, they are in a public-assisted medical facility for this exact reason. But maybe we place the importance and centrality on them in the present, without fully appreciating all of who they are… musician, horse trainer (yep), immigrant, hair stylist to Yoko Ono (yes, really).
•          The staff there is so dedicated – Tom, Kimmie, Lorelei, Maggie…the list is endless (it really is –there are TONS of staff), but I wonder if I could possibly do anything like this for a living. It takes a special soul (and the patience of Job) for this work and I want to honor their herculean efforts.
•          I’ve been thinking about my father a lot this week. He passed away more than 6 years ago from a neuro-muscular disorder that slowly robbed him of this body while his mind stayed sharp, up until he couldn’t walk, talk, or move. Some of the residents reminded me of him and I caught myself thinking a lot of him this week.  A lot of the residents at TCC don’t have regular visitors – it must be incredible isolating to be alone, with strangers (who become a different kind of family), sharing bathrooms or a room, left to your own devices for periods of time. Staff try to keep them stimulated, but there are a lot of residents and they can’t have 1:1 all the time.  My father stayed home and my mother took care of him (with help from Freda…you are the best!). Not everyone can do that. If I am ever faced with the having to go to a facility for long-term care (or forever care, as the case may be), I would rather die.

OK – enough of all that. Tonight, after we got done, we got to go meet a couple UMD alums who live in NYC. Derrick and Ariel graciously treated us to super yummy pizza, pasta, and salad. Dr. Marsha Guenzler-Stevens, Director of The Stamp (our student union on campus) also joined us. I think our students appreciated hearing about Derrick and Ariel’s college stories and their lives living in NYC.  We can’t thank them enough for their hospitality.

Tomorrow is our last day at TCC – each of us has the freedom to go where we want and interact with whichever residents we want. It will be amazing to gather at the end of the day and share all we have learned through our experiences. Time for bed, now!

Second Day at Terence Cardinal Cooke Healthcare Center

Not only was it cold and windy today, but we also actually woke up to snow this morning. We were definitely not prepared for it. Even with layers, most of us don’t have real coats so the cold air blew right through everything. When we got to TCC all of the staff was really excited for us to be back and we were all waiting around to finally be able to go back and talk to the residents again. We went back to the dementia floor to play a variety of games such as Dominos, Pitty Pat, Sorry and Spades. Before we knew it, we had to wrap up the games we were playing so that the residents could participate in the horticulture activity. Each of us went to pair up with a resident to help them make their makeshift chia pet using pantyhose, grass seeds, mulch and use different shaped fabrics to make a face. We were a bit rushed for time because the activity started late and we wanted there to be enough time to clean up the room in time for the residents to have their lunches. After lunch, we went to the auditorium to help set up the tables, chairs, and food for the birthday party celebration. During our set up, Stephen serenades us with his amazing piano skills and Helen joined in for a bit to which was really fun to watch and listen to. Soon after, some of us went back up to help escort the residents down to the auditorium with others continuing to help cut the cakes and fill up cups with soda. During the performance, we were able to sit down with different residents to talk to them. Hannah went and sat next to Shane and helped fed him some cake and ice cream, which was heartbreaking. At times there were many residents who were by themselves so we had to move around so that they would have someone to talk to. There were times when talking to the residents, they would often have to repeat themselves multiple times in order for us to sort of understand what they were trying to tell us. The cake and ice cream was very delicious! Overall, spending the day at TCC was an awesome experience.  We all enjoyed getting to know the different residents and hearing their stories and are looking forward to going back tomorrow to listen to them sing during the karaoke activity.

~Hannah & Valery~

First Day at Terence Cardinal Cooke Healthcare Center

Hi Everyone!

Sorry if the past posts have been slightly mixed up, we have had issues with the Wi-Fi but that hasn't stopped us from blogging any way! Today, we started our first day at Terence Cardinal Cooke Healthcare Center (TCC) in East Harlem. TCC is a healthcare center that works with unique populations such as people living HIV/ AIDS, Huntington's Disease, dementia, and others. We arrived around 10am after a short subway ride. We took a tour of the facilities in the morning and then spent the rest of the day interacting with the residents with a short excursion to Central Park for lunch (which was graciously provided by TCC). Some things that we did included playing games, talking to the residents one-on-one, and making arts and crafts for none other than St. Patrick's Day. We had such a great time working with them, hearing their stories, and sharing a lot of laughs.

In our experience, being able to start developing these connections with the residents has made us begin to reflect on our perceptions of HIV/ AIDS which we hope will develop further throughout the rest of the week. From the one day we spent, we have been able to learn about each person's unique story/ background and are amazed at all they have accomplished. We think that learning about HIV/ AIDS is often from a distance and lacks the human aspect of the people who are living with this medical condition. Interacting with residents has strengthened our perspectives of seeing each person as equals and that they have something unique to contribute to our society as a whole. We are really looking forward to seeing how our experiences at TCC will continue to develop us and our perspectives on this topic and the socio-cultural factors that influence the experience of someone living with HIV/ AIDS.
~Helen & Kelly :) - co-ELs

Scavenger Hunt in NYC!

This Sunday we spent the day on a scavenger hunt. Our journey began in Central Park and then we separated into three groups. We went to MoMo Museum, Time Square, High line and then Chelsea Market. The three groups each enjoyed different sites and ate great desserts.

 The subway adventure was interesting. Some of the AB group’s members got lost, others enjoyed the musical street acts and the buzzing sounds of New York.   Crystal and I’s favorite part of the day was the Time Square.  It was so crowded but it was an eye soar. The large billboards, and stores were the key attractions in Time Square.  The goal of the day was to fin advertisements centered on awareness on HIV/AIDS , and the  testing. Many of the AB members were able to take pictures of how New York had been offering and advocating for positive sexual behaviors. The day was awesome and we all had a great day.

Below we posted pictures of all the places we visited.