Therapy Room RENOVATIONS

A few months ago I got exciting news that I had received space to renovate as my therapy clinic. Since moving to Haiti I have not had a therapy space to call my own. Therefore when I was not in Haiti it was hard to keep my supplies organized and safe. It got very frustrating to return and find supplies missing or broken. The only downfall to the room is that it is a fair distance from the Miriam Center and so time will be lost in transporting children but it is definitely doable. 

These pictures were taken after all the MC depot supplies were moved next door to their new home

Due to all the open wiring we knew we would need to build a half wall for safety reasons

There was some good shelving built in but it was too low to the ground and was not functional for the set-up I wanted. Since it was one big unit we had to tear it out and start over.

Laura helped me undrill and tear out all the shelves. It turned into quite the adventure as it got dark and the generator was not working. Lets say the shelf fell on me at one point but reinforcements came to the rescue ;-)

Den-Den was all about the demolition and so ready to help

I had ALOT of organizing to do as my therapy supplies were spread all over. Some in my bedroom, some in the depot in the kitchen (which had been cleaned out for tiling), some in the classroom depot, etc.

First I organized all the Speech Therapy, Feeding, and Assistive Technology 

supplies that were in my bedroom

I then organized all the AFO's into 2 bins with large in one and small in the other

I then tackled organizing all the other therapy supplies which had gotten piled in the lab. It was nice to have a space to organize that was big enough to spread out all my therapy stuff! It took me almost a week to get everything organized !

SUCCESS!!!!

As I was cleaning and organizing all the therapy supplies and toys I got the idea of making a Saturday toy cupboard for the kids. I organized many of the toys they rarely get to play with because they require supervision. On Saturday mornings they will get 1 container of constructive play (blocks, legos, etc.), 1 bucket of pretend play (animals, play food, etc.), a bucket of gross motor (balls, etc.) and 1 box of creative play (playdough, bubbles, etc.). Their will be 1 Miriam Center mom supervising their playtime on the patio.

During one of my home visits I learned one of my outreach dad's was a carpenter and painter. He was out of work because his shop had gotten broken into and all his tools had been stolen. So I hired Ralph's dad to paint my new therapy room and he is currently working to build shelves, countertops, adjustable height tables, parallel bars, stairs, stacking benches, matt table, etc.

Ralph's dad painting one of the shelves he had just built

Ralph's Dad's Assistant painting a shelf he had just helped build.

Les Katie's dad (one of my outreach families) is a masonary. He had helped with a few projects during our extreme home makeover of the Miriam Center. He built the divider wall and smoothed the walls for me. We paid him in tool and some $ for food. He is such a hard worker and so good at what he does!

Picture taken after top row of shelves up and therapy ball rack built

Behind wall will be book shelf up high and a countertop for me to keep paperwork and write notes, etc.

Ralph's dad will be paid in tools, $ for his wife's heart medicine and some $ for food for all his hard work. Thank you to Kimmy's House for helping to get donations of tools and $ for tools so that we could help this dad reopen his shop and support his family.

Ralph's dad and his assistant built 2 adjustable height table tops. They look great!

Currently Ralph's dad is continuing to work on constructing therapy items for in the room. I left detailed plans for constructing adjustable height parallel bars, stairs, a Matt table, stacking benches, etc.  I can't wait to return to Haiti and see everything and get the room organized. This room is definitely going to come in handy as I start taking rehab tech students from the school in PAP, train my therapy assistant and have therapist and therapy students from the states come and serve in Haiti. I am so EXCITED to see how God is going to use this room!