Easterseals' Christmas ornament reflects spirit of togetherness

For more than two decades the Easterseals West Alabama Christmas ornament has recreated in miniature local landmarks such as Kentuck's Rusty the Big Red Dog, Tuska the elephant statue, the Jemison Mansion, the Old Tavern, City Cafe, the Old L&N Train station and other iconic spots, as crafted by local artists.

Easterseals pulled back to a broader picture for its 2019 West Alabama Memories ornament, featuring the Tuscaloosa200 Bicentennial logo framed by fireworks. For 2020, the perspective expands even wider, showing planet Earth encircled by  Peace, Joy, Love, Compassion, Kindness and other virtues and hopeful feelings, in a work by graphic artist Kim Fyfe and her team at Beacon Design (https://beacondesign.com/).

"We felt like everybody's faced challenges this year," said Ronny Johnston, executive director of Easterseals West Alabama. "But our community has pulled together."

For its silver anniversary ornament, Easterseals wanted to acknowledge interconnectedness. The encircling words "represent the kind of characteristics our community has displayed," Johnston said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sliced into nonprofit organizations, as the United Way of Tuscaloosa kickoff campaign noted, announcing its $4.2 million goal Sept. 15. Roughly $2.1 million has been lost, in grants and fundraising, this year.

Easterseals West Alabama had to cancel its spring ball, usually the agency's largest moneymaker. It was pushed from May to August, in hopes that the outlook would be better then, but finally got cut for 2020. Also canceled was the football season kickoff fundraiser.

"I don't think we'll be doing live events again until we have a vaccine," Johnston said.

At $20 each, for a limited edition run of 250, the ornament's more of a goodwill gesture than moneymaker, though every little addition counts, he said, because their work goes on.

"We closed the building for nine weeks, but we did not stop serving people," Johnston said. The transportation program, provided work-related conveyance for clients, had to close for 10 weeks, due to social distancing concerns.

The workforce development program, which seeks employment for people with disabilities, has been one of the agency's more successful programs this summer.

"In June, July and August we put 60 individuals into employment," Johnston said, which at 20 per month rises above the average 10 to 15, helped via vocational evaluations, a computer lab, and supported employment (on-site coaches for the more severely disabled).

The agency's 2017 building, at 1400 James I. Harrison Jr. Parkway East, was developed with the connected future in mind, so Easterseals West Alabama didn't have to buy a lot of new hardware for the pandemic.

"The new building is wired for this," Johnston said, "but it's learning to use virtual platforms in a new way. We're doing more virtual training, more virtual interviews, virtual child development.

"(The pandemic) is changing our service delivery model. I don't see us honestly going back," he said, though their building is open to those who wear a facial covering, and have their temperature checked at the door.

After a trolley car killed a son of Elyria, Ohio, businessman Edgar Allen in 1907, Allen devoted his life to constructing a hospital. Shocked to find that children with disabilities were often hidden away, out of public view, in 1919 Allen founded the National Society for Crippled Children. One of its early fundraisers was an Easter stamp campaign, begun in spring 1934, featuring a stylized Easter lily crafted by Cleveland Plain Dealer cartoonist J.H. Donahey, to represent how their kids simply wanted the right to normal life. The society incorporated that symbol of rebirth as its logo in 1952, and by 1967, changed the name to match: Easter Seals. It was rebranded as Easterseals, with a new sunburst logo, in 2017.

Each Easterseals facility serves as an independent organization, under the wider umbrella, catered to a community's needs. Begun in 1959 as the Tuscaloosa Rehabilitation Facility, Easterseals West Alabama now serves eight counties, helping at-risk and variously abled people through workforce and academic development; as a Social Security representative payee, helping recipients manage funds; and offering health and educational guidance for young families, a kind of “pre- Pre-K."

Though the agency benefits from United Way status, and via donations from businesses and foundations, fundraisers help keep the services going.

The $20 Christmas ornaments are available at the Easterseals West Alabama facility, online at eswaweb.org (with a $3 shipping charge), or at Hudson-Poole Fine Jewelers, 1111 Greensboro Ave.