COVID Curbside Connection | AIM Center

Art supplies + groceries for the win. AIM Center is a psychosocial rehabilitation, utilizing the Clubhouse Model, to offer employment, education, housing, socialization, and wellness opportunities for adults living with serious mental illness. They help adults in the Chattanooga community lead fulfilling and productive lives while successfully managing their mental health through engaging in meaningful work and relationships in the Clubhouse community.

Due to COVID-19 and the closure of the AIM Center since 3/17/20, members have continued to be engaged by staff through tele-health services, however, the majority of members are without internet access and operating without a personal cell phone. This leaves them isolated.

Curbside Connection is the solution program manager, Lucy White, had in mind. With our $3,000, a few key things will happen. Art supplies will be distributed to AIM Center member artists, gotta keep the creative juiced flowing to manage stress. Daily “Curbside Coffee and Connection” in AIM’s parking lot as well as six different group homes in which AIM Center Members reside. Weekly wellness walks with healthy snacks provided and weekly social distancing grill-outs at AIM Center’s four Housing Properties.

Budget breakdown is $2,500 for groceries, $300 for gas and $200 for art supplies. The 205 Chattanooga residents living with severe and persistent mental illness will greatly benefit from this outreach.

Music and Dance Therapy | Austin Hatcher Foundation

Cancer sucks. Especially if you’re a kid.

In the next year, dance and music-based interventions will be utilized at Austin Hatcher Foundation to aid in the physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual well being of their recovering childhood cancer patients. Music-based therapies have demonstrated success in improving patients' communication, self-esteem, and aid in physical recovery. For one patient, in particular, music-based therapy enabled him to communicate both through sign language in dance and verbally through audio. This young man is both a cancer survivor and suffers from cerebral palsy from the unfortunate side effect of life-saving medication. Because he struggles with communication, his mother has been very thankful that this intervention that has become available to her family at no cost thanks to the contributions made by the UNFoundation of Chattanooga. These interventions will be available year-round to all patients at no cost, regardless of race, socioeconomics and age.

Our $3,000 grant will pay for a mix of individual and group-based dance and music classes in the Spring of 2020 and will allow Austin Hatcher to host group music and dance therapy at their 2020 summer camps in June/July of 2020. The instructor is Louie Marin, and he will be in residence as the instructor for all classes.

Trauma-Informed Family Rooms at Children's Advocacy Center | Homes and Havens

Back in 2017, the UNFoundation supported a burgeoning effort dubbed Homes & Havens to create healing spaces in multiple homes for women in recovery.  They partner with local organizations that are already working to assist women out of their initial crisis. These are usually residential programs that last anywhere from a few months up to two years. After a woman is referred to them by one of their partners, they begin the process of creating a haven in her own home. It has been a big success, and they are now extending their trauma-informed design services to the agencies that help. 

The Children's Advocacy Center in Chattanooga reached out to them and asked for help designing and decorating two family rooms within their agency. These rooms are where families wait and meet with a caseworker while their child begins a forensic exam after being sexually assaulted or abused. They are also used by three different agencies within Chattanooga all working with victims of trauma and will serve multiple caseworkers, parents, guardians, and children during their visit to the Family Justice Center.

These rooms should feel like home, and embrace all that enter them. Once complete the space will be a comforting, calming, and therapeutic space for families and children during such a traumatic time. Currently, the spaces lack this warm, cozy home luster. The before photos are highlighted so stay tuned for photos of the completed project!

Music Therapy | Austin Hatcher Foundation

Pediatric cancer is abominable. Finally something we can all agree on. Enter the Austin Hatcher Foundation for Pediatric Cancer. Based right here in Chattanooga, their mission is to erase the effects of pediatric cancer and optimize each child’s quality of life through essential specialized intervention beginning at the time of diagnoses and continuing throughout survivorship.

Our $1,500 grant will bring music therapy into the mix. Megan Taylor is a music therapist who has worked with teens with behavioral problems and addictions, children with developmental delays and cancer diagnoses, and adults within the memory care units. She is also working specifically with children with Cystic Fibrosis, providing them individualized music therapy services during their hospital stay. She uses a wide range of instruments to help her clients meet their goals, from songwriting to drumming, to playing the guitar, and many other instruments in between.