Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
Lenny Kass from JCC Rainbow Camp with a Program for Young Adults with Special Needs to Learn Farming Skills 6-23-24
Once I've left school, there are not many programs available for young adults with special needs. So it's great to know that JCC is stepping up to help and joining us on our Tri-County Contracting Hotline is Lenny Cast. He is the executive director of the Albert and Ann Duscher JCC Rainbow Day Camp and Lenny, tell us about the Bonim farmers. - Well, it's a fun program we have out here at our day camp. We have a big garden area and what we've done is developed a program for young adults with special needs to be employed and give back. So what they do is they work in our garden. Got a year-round greenhouse. We've got a big garden outside and then they also get a chance to process some spices. But all of this is done and given to the Jewish community pantry or the Ozaki family sharing pantry or random lake pantry. So the goal of the program is to have employment for young adults with special needs and allow them to have an opportunity to give back. - What does the word Bonim mean in Hebrew? - It means builders. And what they are doing is building a community. They're trying to make southeastern Wisconsin a healthier place. We all love to give back. And there's not a lot of opportunities for some of our young adults with special needs to do that. And that is what Bonim Farms is all about. - All right, well, tell us what a typical day's like for a Bonim farmer. - Well, we've got two different segments of our program. There's the summer program where they're part of our day camp. And when they're part of our day camp, they're working in the farm for part of the day. And they're also having an opportunity to play as campers. Then in the off season, which is September through May, they come in on either Sunday or Tuesday afternoons or Wednesday afternoons and they come in and they're working on the farm. So it's just September, they're putting the garden to bed or they're harvesting some fall crops. They're taking and dehydrating things. They're processing spices, they're packaging spices. One of the things that we found in some of our pantries is that they don't have spices to give along with the food. So we buy the spices and bulk, package them up and then send them down there. So they'll be spending part of the time doing that or we might be making cutting boards. Another workforce feel, we actually take the young adults, glue the boards together, we run them through planers, they sand them, polish them up and then they donate them to the food pantry. - Tell us about this one thing. This really caught my interest, Lenny. And that's a bicycle blender. Explain what that is. - Well, one of the things that we like to do at our camp is to teach all of our campers about soil to plate. And one of the things that we've come across is a blender that's attached to a bicycle. It's a stationary bike and you put the stuff in and the young adults will be pedaling away. And while that's going, it's making the blender go round and round and it ends up with a nice little smoothie. So it's a great opportunity for kids to try things they never have an opportunity to try in a fun way. - How do the parents and the families from Bony and Farmer's feel about this program? - I'll tell you, we get so many praises from our families because it's got so many components to it. It's employment for their young adults. It's socialization for them because they come, there's 16 of them. So they're working with other young adults and then they're giving back. And then we provide transportation from the Milwaukee area because we're located up in Fredonia. So it's a win-win for everybody. And I'll tell you that when their child comes home with a smile on their face and they say, "Well, what'd you do today?" We were dehydrating apples and they go to the Jewish community pantry and big smiles on their face. - And one other thing is tell us about Fresh Market Wednesdays at the JCC in Whitefish Bay. - Well, once a week, what we will do is take the skills that you can learn by actually selling and take some of our farmers down there and they set up in our lobby a fresh market so that our members can come and buy produce year-round. We're doing microgreens in January and our young adults are learning how to do the money transactions. They're learning how to talk to customers. So it's all skill things that will work in additional jobs or they could just stay in our job. A number of hours is just part-time. So a number of them have part-time jobs in numerous places, Goodwill or some of our other local companies that hire. It's a neat thing for them. - Lenny, I know there are a lot of families out there that have young adults who do have disabilities and is there a way that they can also benefit from this program? Tell us how they can get more information. - They can contact myself at the Milwaukee Jewish Community Center. The phone number there is 414-964-4444 or they can email me at lcast@ JCCMilwaukee.org. The other thing that we're doing is we're working with area high schools and their transition programs. So those are the kids that have graduated from high school but stay for a couple years. They're actually coming out as a group and helping out bony farms. So if somebody has a young adult at a high school and they're not involved in this, have their high school give us a call. There might be some opportunities. - Lenny, not only are you doing good but I know you also have a great time at the JCC Rain Vote Day Camp. Lenny Kast, the executive director. Thanks so much for joining us today. - Have a great day.