In the world of Dennis…

i would like t0   work  at  village   voice   full time.

I  would like to go to a fountain house apartment to live.

A TYPICAL DAY

 

Today, I would like to write about the everyday work of the Wellness Unit rather than a particular event or project.  Much of this work is duplicated in every unit of the house, like cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping and mopping, while other work may be specific to the wellness unit, like chair exercising.

 

A typical day in our unit begins with taking attendance and the morning meeting where tasks are assigned and shared by members and staff.  Planning is also done for gardening days and weekends at Highpoint.  Some members will shop at local stores and farmer’s markets for produce not available from Highpoint.  Salad may be prepared for lunches in the KDR.

 

Other members will enter attendance statistics into the computer or create signs or work on progress note entries into Awards.  Someone will volunteer to lead chair exercises twice daily.  The gym also has to be cleaned daily since both members and staff make use of our equipment. Members have time slots for using the gym equipment while other members and staff act as personal trainers. A member is assigned to reception and answering the phones.  Reach out is done daily and notes are collected weekly for the newspaper.  Members also volunteer to attend various house meetings.

 

A Wellness Café and Farmers Market take place every Friday, and preparations for this include preparing salads, soups, granola bars and muffins for sale.  We will also be introducing different types of tea purchased in Chinatown.  Keeping our physical space clean and inviting rounds out each day.

Wellness Unit by Nuria Kelly for 14IS

Hello, my name is Nuria Kelly. I’ve been a member of Fountain House since 1994. I’ve been working with the members and staff side-by-side all the years I’ve been here. Fountain House is a clubhouse where you work and also enjoy yourself on holidays. At Fountain House there is staff and members of the Wellness Unit that help people lose weight.

The work I liked to do in the Snack Bar, before Wellness started was cooking on the grill. Now I am looking up healthy recipes, making salads for the KDR, zucchini muffins and peach sorbet.

The first time I heard that the Snack Bar was changing I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do, so I said to one of the staff, what is going to be the new name of the unit. He told me the Wellness Unit, so I was surprised. Then I said I am going to miss the Snack Bar. So I said I will get used to the Wellness unit soon.

I am going to lose weight soon thanks to the staff and members of the Wellness Unit. I will be able to do that and I am going to work hard at it. I am not giving up. I am going to make myself look good soon.

In my exercise class, I am working out using the machines that I am instructed to use. I am working on the treadmill for 30 minutes and the elliptical for 15 minutes. Then I am doing chest and bicep and also back and triceps exercises with weights. I am using weight machines and stretches for my arms and legs. I exercise for 1 hour 3 days a week.

The Wellness Unit is a great place to work on trimming down. The machines we have are magnificient. The Wellness Unit, it is exciting to be here. It helps me see myself more, losing weight, exercising and being healthy.

cafe day numero dos

Today we had our second cafe day/farmer’s market in the Wellness Unit. We had been preparing all week for it, cooking different items from the menu and getting vegetables from High Point. We served spicy lentil soup, creamy pumpkin/turnip soup, green salads with roasted beets, fruit salad and our specials – granola bars and healthy muffins. We also had great fair trade coffee on hand in good flavors: Hamid’s choice was the excitingly named “Sweet Love Blend.”  Can’t go wrong with that.

 In the granola bar department, we had cranberry and peanut butter flavor. Because Jason, the granola bar god was on TE for part of the week, we had a few mishaps in the kitchen. The peanut butter ones are especially tricky … if you don’t get the PB/applesauce balance just right, it goes from granola bar to sweet sticky peanut brittle in a flash. We ultimately gave up on cutting them into squares and crunched them up into yogurt/ice cream topping. The other thing to know about the peanut butter bars is that they are wicked filling and you can eat one and be full for hours and hours.

 The soups were really delicious. The pumpkin/turnip was a repeat from last week, and it was a hit again. The lentil soup was delicious, with a little kale, turnips, and squash from the farm. It tasted great with a little yogurt on top. The bread on the tables made it an elegant meal. Thanks to Sullivan Street Bakery for the wonderful bread – given despite the fact that they had a fire in one of their ovens yesterday and were behind on their orders.

 Our biggest seller from the Farmer’s Market was fresh-pressed cider made from High Point apples. It was made on Wednesday and was ready to sell on Friday. Fresh, fresh, fresh.

One issue we had to decide about was whether to use paper cups and plates or china. We didn’t like the idea of so much waste, so we’ve opted for china and regular silverware. It makes for a lot of dishwashing, but we think it’s worth it.

Our customers seem to be enjoying the cafe. We got some rave reviews and lots of folks said they would be back next week. Barbara said the muffins were “to die for” and Ethan said it was “the best meal I’ve had in 3 years.”  OK!

 Good news for us!

Wellness-Unit SWEEET!

  I’m basically a new member of The Fountain House. My unit is Wellness.  I am really stoked about this unit,because  I believe that one should be aware of the envirment around them. As well in keeping fit and and healthy. The wellness unit is in the progress in makeing a intro video on the whole gym. Just to “Leak” some things out,we are looking into filming the gym unit and making a short clip in what the gym has to offer, so its going to be sick! Just keep a watch out for it, and we have a dead line but… I guess that you’ll find out later!!!?? So “keep watch”

As well spread the word about Fridays. Its the “Wellness Cafe.” The food is off the hook and healty too! (pumpking soup Woo!) Well I just have to say I am so excited to be a part of the Fountain House, its a fantastic place and I am extreamly grateful to be here. Thanks for reading!

                                                                                                  -Angela Getz (Wellness Unit)

my expierence in wellness

 hi, my name is christine. I’m really exicted there is a wellness  unit. Orignally i was in snack bar but i went to a wellness conference with my worker John Adams last year  at NYU. It was very intersting  to see how important  what   people with madness are more prone to illlness. After that i proped a prospsal for the unit to Ken with the help of Ruth Parsons and Jessica and we finally  got the show on the road… im really exicted about the meals we are going to have and also the exercise unit. just to let u know im a veggie grrrl… the workers here are really good and have excellent skills with helping people… big ups to John Adams  he helped out soo much and thanx u  soo much for being there

 thanx u all,

Christine

grand opening of the wellness cafe

This past Friday was the first day for our Wellness Cafe- our grand opening. We’ve decided as a group that starting out we should be open one day a week and we can increase days and times when we feel comfortable with doing so. The farmers market is also still running on Fridays so we had both going on at the same time.

 From 12-2:30 we served roughly 50 people items such as fruit salad, granola bars (cranberry and peanut butter), muffins (zucchini and cranberry walnut), applesauce, and pumpkin turnip soup… not to mention the stuff from the farmers market. For beverages, we sold organic coffee and about eight different types of tea and offered cucumber water for free. Granola bars and muffins were charged at 25 cents each, while the fruit salad was $1 and the soup was 75 cents. The reviews were excellent and we sold out of pretty much everything we had.

For us the day was quite exciting but also hectic as we tried to keep up with all the dishes and serving/cleaning throughout the day. Though it does add more work, I’m glad that we are not using paper products or plastic silverware. With many members and staff out, we had a lot of people step up to cover the workload and everything went very smoothly. However, I’m wondering how much other work we will be able to get done if we decide to open the cafe all or most days of the week. We’d certainly need some more help! But also as we establish a routine we should be able work more efficiently and save ourselves a lot of time.

building momentum

So here we are in our fourth month as a unit and things are moving along quite nicely. Its great to see some people have established a bit of routine while also keeping an open mind to new tasks and ventures. We have been making salads for the KDR (our dining unit) for quite some time now. Some people enjoy working on that while others feel that we could use our time more wisely. It seems that soon we will be serving our own salads up here in the Wellness Unit. We’ve also tested out of bunch of recipies, with granola bars and zucchini muffins being our most popular snack items thus far. Today we are going to test some peanut butter granola bars.

 Our gym has also become very popular. I’d say that there about 3-4 times as many people up there on a given day than there was back in July. Other staff and members have assembled an introduction packet for the gym and have begun to go around to the other units with a presentation about the gym and to talk about why it is worthwhile to exercise.

 Another goal we are working on is to educate the clubhouse about health-related issues. I have had conversations with members who are interested in setting up guest lectures here at the house and other educational forums. Soon we will be working on a bulletin board to be updated monthly or bi-monthly to be used as a passive educational piece regarding health awareness (i.e. Smoking Cessastion month, etc). We’ve also started a small library that we aim to expand in the near future. We will be purchasing new bookcases and perhaps tables, as well as gathering more books and resources.

 People have been busy up at the garden as well I hear. I have only been able to make it up there for one day trip so far, but I had a great experience and look forward to getting back up there. People have begun to plan for next year’s growing season. We have to decided what we want to plant (less zucchini perhaps?) and I do believe there will be some indoor growing during the winter.

Finally, our weekly farmer’s market has become pretty established. We were selling a ton of produce (cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, turnips, lettuce, parsley, tomatoes, potatoes, and so on..) but since there isn’t a lot of things growing currently we have started to sell snacks and soups. We hope to also put our electric juicer to work and start thinking about opening our health bar, serving just juice, snacks, soups, and the like for the meantime… until we get all of our kitchen supplies. Then we’ll be making a lot more stuff.

There’s certainly more that has been going on, but that’s a brief update for you. Stop by and visit!