Keep On Moving

On August 8 th, a group of over 75 people served by the agency and their staff went on a day trip to Adventureland in Des Moines. This trip was organized with financial assistance through the Steve Smith “Keep On Moving” Memorial Fund. This activity was the largest that the agency has seen for some time, if ever. People served by Systems Unlimited from all over Southeast Iowa attended, making connections and friendships that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. I believe everyone had a great time, as can be seen in the pictures.

I would like to share a story about connections that I was able to witness recently because of this trip. As some of you know, I am a coach for Special Olympics and was recently in Muscatine at a Softball Skills competition for the Eastern Iowa area. While there, a few of the athletes from Iowa City were talking about going to Adventureland (it was before the trip on the 8 th). A couple athletes from Muscatine were overhearing and said they were also planning on going soon.

They quickly realized that they all received services from SUI and started talking about plans they had for the summer and places they had gone in the past. This conversation sparked some other athletes from another area’s interest and they began talking. These athletes said they rarely get a chance to do those types of things. The people getting services from SUI talked about how their staff help them do those things and that they should talk to those staff if they wanted to go. This conversation then led to a discussion comparing services providers and their staff,

Though I doubt anyone is planning on moving to start services with Systems because of that conversation it does demonstrate the result of our core values in action. When we express our core values in our work, we see positive change and that positivity is infectious. Just from that conversation about our services, those people may go home and think about their own lives and what they want or don’t want in it. Then that may lead to services changes in their own lives. I see these interactions with the community taking place often in my position. From this first hand experience I want to stress to all the importance of utilizing our core values in all of our interactions from the counselor level on up. In a constantly evolving and now competitive field of work these conversations and modeling of the core values are what separates us from the competition.