Participants and staff at Cosmo Market Mall along with co-workers and staff from Cosmo Arlington have kept busy
during the summer with garden work. A generous donation of garden space was provided by Morley and Patty Schemenauer, on an acreage near Saskatoon. In late May, this new opportunity became available for participants to contribute in the planting process. The participants were able to grow in the experience of transplanting a variety of bedding plants such as tomatoes, purple pole beans, basil, and cilantro. In addition, a variety of seeds
such as peas, carrots, lettuce, onions, beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, potatoes, and watermelons were planted.
Gardening in a country setting has
been an amazing opportunity for
each individual to experience personal growth within a team to
maintain a garden. Each participant that has been involved in this
project has contributed efforts to
water, cultivate, remove and carry
away weeds. For each individual,
learning to deal with the heat, rain,
and insects helped foster the characteristics of hardiness in each of
us.
As August arrived our team of gardeners began to notice the fruit of
our labours develop. Each visit to the garden the participants shared in the efforts of gathering an abundant variety
of vegetables and fruits. From this produce, the crew at Cosmo Market Mall have endeavoured to be adventurous
and try various recipes resulting in vegetable soup, green fried tomatoes, salsa, and spicy fridge pickles!
The Arlington location would like to highlight and send our thanks and gratitude to Kaylee. Kaylee has volunteered at Arlington ever since the location
opened in April, every Monday morning. She has enjoyed doing various activities such as crafts, board games, spa days and cooking. She portrays flexibility and willingness to go on an array of outings. She has been very helpful at
the garden, music group at Elmwood, neighborhood walks, mall walking and
University tours. Kaylee is very helpful, cheerful, and interacts well with both
the participants and staff. Everyone at Arlington appreciates Kaylee’s dedication in volunteering! For more information about volunteering, please contact
our Volunteer Coordinator at [email protected].
Community and Enriched Supports has had a very
busy summer! We have taken advantage of the
beautiful weather by spending a lot of time outside.
A few of our participants had the opportunity to go
to the exhibition for the day and enjoyed the rides
and fair food. We also took a group of participants
out to Hafford, Saskatchewan for the day to see the
“Crooked Trees.” Other summer activities for CES
included Kinsmen Park, Mexican day, Forestry
Farm and Pike Lake for a beach day! We wound
down our summer by having a BBQ and Western Themed day. We are continuing to recycle
cans and bottles for all of the Saskatoon hospitals and running different errands for Cosmo.
On September 16th Knox, Market Mall and Arlington satellites celebrated the end of summer. We
had a lunch of spaghetti and meat sauce, caesar salad, garlic toast and apple crisp and ice cream
using apples generously donated to us from John Janzen’s family. The day started off with bingo in
the morning where the participants won either a shirt or a hat. Lunch for approximately 75 people
was served and enjoyed by everyone. In the afternoon we had a dance and played a couple of
songs that allowed the participants to use the shakers they had made before the windup.
The biggest hit was the “Finding Nemo” piñata that Rosario, Chin Chu and the participants made.
Everyone had a chance to hit it and when it finally broke there was a cascade of candy that fell out
to the participants delight. Everyone had lots of fun throughout the day and left full and happy!
We cannot say thank you enough to all of the participants,
staff, families, caregivers, our Board, Community Living Service Delivery and all of the Saskatoon community for all of
their support since that devastating day on April 11. It has
not been an easy journey, however your understanding and
patience has assisted us very much!
We wanted to share with all of you where we are at. Most
importantly we continue to deliver amazing programs to our
participants! We have had to expand into a few more
places, such as the Maunders McNeil Fitness Center within
Elmwood, Knox United Church, and Christ Church. Even
our two satellites have welcomed more participants during
this challenging situation.
Since the flood, participants have been enjoying a variety of
new experiences, such as new participants to work with,
new staff members to work with and for many participants a
new location to work at!
Many participants miss their friends and staff who work at
other locations; however, they have made new friends and
have enjoyed working and getting to know other staff. We
simply are missing one another! Over the summer months,
staff members have made sure that participants have been
able to visit friends at other locations as much as possible.
Lydale is the contractor who is doing our rebuild. They have been working very hard to get things put back together, but there is a lot of things to do! At the same time, we are taking this opportunity to make some positive
changes to our space. We have designed the space to allow more natural light in as many spots as possible--it
is going to be bright and sunny in lots of places! We wanted the participants to have more space at their entrance so we have enlarged this area. The side ramp areas where some participants depart from is often cold in
the winter, so we have created a vestibule to make everyone more comfortable and safe. You will see some
changes in the cafeteria too! Storage will now be within the cafeteria for better accessibility. We have created
more prep space and our goal is to move away from using Styrofoam, which will not only help our environment
but is also a cost saving initiative.
R & D Interiors will be taking care of all of our flooring. Can you believe we previously had about 27 different
types of flooring? We certainly are not going to have that many different types of flooring anymore!
This is a large project that has turned from devastating to exciting as we cannot wait to have the participants return. We do know that when they return, the colors of the walls won’t matter, nor the types of floors. Only the
people will matter, because we know they are the heart of Cosmo.
Cosmo is like family to both staff and participants and we are looking forward to one big reunion once the renovations are all done! Yes, the flood was a major hardship; however, in typical Cosmo style we all embraced the
challenge and created new opportunities. We truly are the ‘Miracle on 34th Street’!
Sharlene Duquette
Executive Director
Once again, through the Top of the Rock,
Cosmo has 4 season passes to the Blades
games. Tickets are $1 per ticket. If you are
interested, please call the Administration Office
at (306)664-3158.
For the fifth year in a row, the Ministry of Education has proclaimed September 10th as Youth
Safety Education Day. Youth Safety Education Day focuses on educating and encouraging
schools and other organizations involved with youth to be mindful and informed about workplace
safety. Saskatchewan has traditionally had the highest or second highest workplace injury rates in
the country. Only through focusing on youth can we make the much needed cultural change.
Young people are three times more likely to be injured on the job than any other worker. We all
have an obligation to educate and protect our most valuable resource, our youth.
This year alone, over 50 major partnering organizations are working with the SHSA to reach an audience of well over 4,000 youth in an impactful and meaningful way. (Taken from SHSA)
We partnered with Service and Hospitality Safety Association (SHSA) this year. They provided us
with many great activities for the staff and participants to take part in. Some of the activities included “spot the hazard”, “Are you Safer than a Fifth Grader” game which was a huge success,
make your own safety poster, and a scavenger hunt. Thanks to SHSA for this valuable information.
Thanks to all participants and staff that cooperated in this important day.
Arlington have have welcomed nine new
participants since April 4th. including Candice Ounpuu, Matthew Cunningham,
David Narula, Tammy Bell, Mary Opsal,
Melissa Slowski, Joseph Wilby, Courtney
Kitching and Erik Kluchewski. These new
participants have been a great addition
to the Arlington location and are excited
about their future careers with Cosmo!
Some of their favourite things about
Cosmo Arlington are:
Candice- being able to participate in fun
activities with new friends
Matthew- all the new furniture
David- being able to attend the Saskatoon Exhibition
Erik- being able to ride on the bus and
meeting new friends
Courtney- meeting new friends and coworkers
Joseph- being able to go on fun outings
every day
On Tuesday August 30th the whole Knox group ventured out to Martensville for the day. First, we toured
around and were very surprised at how big the city
had gotten. Neil is from Martensville and was very
proud to show us his home city. Due to lack of time
Neil was disappointed that he didn’t get to meet up
with his family and friends but hoped to visit them
soon. We found the Kinsmen Park which has a
beautiful lake beside it and had our picnic lunch. It
was a gorgeous day and the participants really enjoyed the opportunity to be outside. After lunch we
knew we couldn’t leave without a visit to the bakery
that we have all heard so much about. We purchased some cheesy herb sticks and enjoyed them
on our coffee break back at Knox. We have been so
lucky to be able to go out in the community so much
this summer.
On September 16th, the participants at Christ
Church along with our friends from Community
and Enriched Support had a summer wind up
party at the Christ Church satellite. We enjoyed
barbequed hamburgers (big thanks to Richard and
Stewart for BBQ-ing the burgers for us), pop,
chips, and ice cream. In the afternoon we played
bingo and won prizes, had a photo booth and tattoos. It was a western theme, so we all dressed up
in our cowboy clothes and went back to the Old
West. We all had a great visit and a great time!
Summer wind-up party with a Hawaiian twist was a lot of fun for all of us in the Cosmo/Elmwood gym program
and the Elmwood Day Program. We celebrated and started the day with a photo booth with lots of tropical
props. We worked on making Hawaiian lanterns as a craft activity. For lunch we had pizza and salad, and for
dessert we had delicious coconut pineapple pudding. After lunch we played bingo and watched a movie.
On August 25th Life Skills had their 2nd annual Folk
Fest day. The countries featured this year included
Philippines, Ireland, Ukraine, Germany and Mexico.
Life Skills was treated to many wonderful performers
this year including Roberto Flores who performed a
variety of Mexican songs for the second year in a
row. The Personal Supports ladies (Verjet, Victoria,
Rhain, Lourdes, Lyn & Life Skills’ very own Marites)
performed a beautiful traditional Philippine dance
called the Tinikling Dance. Vanessa came with a
group from Arlington and performed a traditional
Ukrainian dance and Cody from Life Skills did a Kung
Fu demonstration. Everyone had a great time; there
was so much to see and experience! We were even
treated to a Ukrainian lunch of perogies & sausage
followed by a Philippine dessert called Biko (sweet
rice cake). We look forward to the great opportunities
and experiences that Folk Fest will bring to our area
next year!
On July 25, 2016 Cosmo at Sherbrooke
watched a tipi being raised at Sherbrooke. A
tipi (also tepee or teepee) is a conical tent.
Traditionally was constructed from animal
skins, our tipi is handmade of canvas. A tipi is
distinguished from other tents by the smoke
flaps at the top of the structure. We spent the
morning watching the tipi being built, had an
opportunity to ask questions and learn more
about the entire process. This was followed by
sampling of two types of bannock, buckwheat
soup and the chance to see the tipi up close.
The tipi will be used for healing circles, celebrations and other activities at Sherbrooke. It
was wonderful morning of learning and celebrating.