UCP of the North Bay
Community Outreach Update
August 7, 2020
Agency News
The new UCP of the North Bay Thrift Center located in Rohnert Park will tentatively open in September. With our newest Thrift Center comes a new name, Flipside Thrift. We are very excited to serve the Sonoma Community with quality clothing and other merchandise. UCP of the North Bay owns and operates several businesses in the recycling, packaging, and thrift store industries, all of which support our programs for children and adults with developmental disabilities.
Legislation and Advocacy
We continue to work with our federal representatives to achieve a stimulus package that supports the states’ (including California) with their deficits in order to fund education, public safety and other critical human service programs, like ours. This federal fiscal support is crucial in order to avoid deep cuts to our program’s budgets, starting in October. Please look for our Action Alerts and participate. We are all in this together.
Cypress School Update
Cypress School has successfully completed their first week of our August Adapted Behavior Program Summer Session. They are fine-tuning plans for the kick-off of the new school year with a robust program of live and self-paced distance learning opportunities. They are also developing practices that align with state requirements and address student needs, as well as pursuing the process to return to some form of in-person support in a way that is safe to do so, as soon as possible.
Adult Day Program Update
WineBev Services, our first Adult Day Program, opened in January 2008 with the promise of employing adults with developmental disabilities in the wine industry at minimum wage. It was always our intent to expand the paid work opportunities that we provided onsite to the community in partnership with local businesses. When we opened Gone for Good in October 2010, we had no idea that our recycling business would expand over three counties and provide even more opportunities for our participants to work in the community. OADS became a part of UCP of the North Bay in November 2013 and our Senior Program opened soon thereafter in February 2015. Today, we are serving a combined 260 participants and we know that all of them are anxious to return to work. The online classes and activities that we are providing now are keeping our community together as we work to reopen as soon as possible. We want to thank everyone for their support and encouragement, knowing that our commitment to providing greater employment opportunities for our participants is as strong today as it has ever been.