Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Occupational Therapy Assistant program at Sinclair, (OTA) and some members of the Dayton community gather in the OTA lab in building 14.
The reason for this weekly gathering is to participate in Fun Night.
Fun Night is a series of events organized by the students of the OTA program. It has been going on for several years, and many of the instructors now in the program participated as students. Mentally challenged citizens of Dayton gather on one of these nights to participate in the event.
Several activities take place on these nights that can be boiled down into three groups. First the clients practice cooking a simple meal, such as sandwiches, wrapped hot dogs and even strawberry shortcake.
Next they participate in a fine motor activity, doing something intricate with their hands usually creating some craft such as making a necklace from baseball seams, or painting a spider.
Finally, everyone participates in a gross motor activity, an activity involving a lot of movement or exercise such as dancing.
The overall purposes of this day are three-fold. The first is to give OTA students some boots on the ground experience. These students begin working in this program when they enroll as OTAs at Sinclair. This helps them practice how to organize an event, and keep the participants active and engaged.
Many students currently participating in this even have given very strong feedback. This has helped them to be more prepared for the workforce they are going into. One such student, named AJ said, “I have never had the privilege to work with this population of people, and am very glad for the chance. This is great firsthand experience to get into this field.”
Tim Meeks, a supervisor for the Fun Night program, also believes this firsthand experience to be very beneficial.
“We throw the student’s right in,” Meeks said, “and they switch out every seven weeks so everyone gets the opportunity.”
Meeks is an example of the longevity of the program. When he started training to be an OTA nine years ago, Fun Night was already in full swing. His son now participates as a client in Fun Night, and has always had an excellent time.
The second reason for Fun Night is to provide the members of the community a chance to socialize. A lot of these clients can feel ostracized from society, and this can lead to sadness and dismay.
Fun Night alleviates this by bringing people together to hang out and work on their social skills.
These members also get a chance to learn and practice new skills. Sarah, a supervisor for the program, mentioned that they occasionally go on outings. These outings help members to work on community re-entry, and learn every day skills such as paying for things, buying loved ones gifts and putting together a menu to go grocery shopping.
“When you get everyone going as a team they all work phenomenally,” Meeks said. “When a lot of folks get to this age (Late 20’s to 50’s) they struggle finding social activities.”
The final, and most important goal of Fun Night, is to have fun. It can be very difficult for some of these members, who are in homes or other places to receive care, to have a good time. Fun Night can create an enjoyable time and a comfortable space for them.
“Every month Scene75 gives some of our clients 10 dollars to come play games, but they always choose to come here instead,” Sarah said.
“This is a tight knit group of people, some of which have been coming for more than a decade,” Meeks said. “They all like and care for one another.”
The program, both Meeks and Sarah said, has been extremely successful. The three weekday meetings have been a place of fun and friendship for all involved.
Anyone can get involved in the program, and the participants are more than happy to welcome everyone with open arms, and lots of friendly hugs.
Jacob Conger
Reporter