5 for Good: Mother's love fuels service program for young adults with disabilities
Club SMILE Mass provides workout classes, resources and community for families
Club SMILE Mass provides workout classes, resources and community for families
Club SMILE Mass provides workout classes, resources and community for families
A Sudbury-based program is helping young adults with disabilities continue to learn and grow after aging out of the special education system.
An adaptive exercise coach, Trevor Fishman leads workouts for Club SMILE Mass, Monday through Friday.
"It's great for brain stimulation and helping folks use their energy,” Fishman said. "We probably see like 15 to 20 individuals each day for workouts."
The program utilizes a facility in Natick and the Fairbank Community Center in Sudbury for gym classes, swim classes, social meetups and much more.
Lynn Waskelis called SMILE Mass a lifeline for her 23-year-old daughter Maggie Newell when she finished school.
“To be getting regular really quality exercise and to be having these chances to have a regular group of friends, which is, for Maggie, really important,” Waskelis said. “She's a social person.”
Another mother, Lotte Diomede, built the program, understanding the need because of her son Nicholas, who was born with a neurological disorder.
"I always knew I wanted to bring a program together for Nicholas so he can gracefully grow old surrounded by like-minded people, have fun but still have the opportunity to be well stimulated and continue to learn,” Diomede said. “It shouldn't be a privilege."
Diomede said her days start before dawn.
"He needs that care 24/7 ... You know, he can't get out of bed without me or somebody else,” she said. "Someone like my son has 24 specialists at Children's Hospital."
Despite the enormous challenges, Diomede said missing out on joy in life was never an option.
"Despite that, he's medically complex, physically disabled and nonverbal, he's a human first," she said. "As a mother on a mission to make the world better, I feel it's our obligation as adults to try and set up the world a little bit better."
When Diomede founded SMILE Mass, the nonprofit was focused on making playgrounds accessible and providing towns and families with recreational equipment like adaptive bikes and floating beach wheelchairs, then, she developed Club SMILE Mass.
"All the clients that we service directly, which is about 70 clients right now, we have a waitlist,” she said. “We can't increase our schedule where we are because there's just not more space to do so."
She said having their own accessible building and property is the goal of SMILE Mass. A 30-acre property that sits in Sudbury and Framingham has already been identified, and fundraising is underway.
Find information about supporting SMILE Mass here.