We were recently named, by North of Boston Business magazine, to the Best 25 Places to Work! And we’re feeling very proud!
We have exceptional Colleagues who create a WOW! Magic culture, making every day at ATI a day of joy. See what our Colleagues had to say about why they love working here and read the article from NOBB here.
Check our Day Services Colleagues, congratulating us on the honor here.
We celebrated as a family on Thursday, April 9, congratulating our Colleagues for making us a Best Place to Work! We had a balloon drop, raffles, a few videos, and the most decadent desserts from Buttermilk Baking Company.
Check out some of the fun below:
Every April 2nd the whole world turns blue. From the Empire State Building to the Sydney Opera House, from Niagara Falls to the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Brazil, nations worldwide unite by lighting everything in blue in an effort to raise Autism awareness.
We were a part of that! We brought our WOW! Magic and lit it up blue at all of our sites!
Check out these fact below, provided by Autism Speaks. Then click here to learn more and spread the word!
Every year we “ship off” on a great vacation to our latest Spring Break destination, somewhere where our whole ATI family can come together and grow. Last year we ventured to London, other years have included Paris, Egypt, even Disney World.
This year, we kept things stateside (and local) with a trip to Bootcamp.
This Spring Break trip is our annual offsite training day for all of our Colleagues. With our WOW! Magic, we make that day extra special. This year that included basic training, a USO Show consisting of our own very talented Colleagues, and a very challenging obstacle course. Everything was made all the better by our fantastic decorations as you’ll see below!
We had special guests including four students from the Methuen JROTC, Alex Suyer from ICentrix, and Kate Clark of Stoneman, Chandler & Miller LLP.
We paid tribute to our ATI family members who have been called home to heaven in the last year. We honored those who have served our great nation. And we wrote letters to those who are serving now as well as to our local veterans.
Check out our American Training family in action at our annual Colleague WOW! Magic training day:
Check out more pictures from the event on our Facebook page.
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
– Margaret Fuller
Check us out on page 9 in the April 8 edition of the Eagle Tribune here and below in English & Spanish in the April 15 edition of Rumbo.
Story time with a wonderful children’s author, bookmark making, coloring with character-shaped crayons, books galore, and snacks from our favorite stories. That was our Tuesday morning. That was our Book Drive Bash!
On March 31st, the last day of National Reading Month, we celebrated with the culmination of our month-long (and then some) book drive for the School for Exceptional Studies. We collected a total of over 1900 books to donate to the school, for their K-4 students. On March 31st, we gave them those books.
A few students and teachers arrived at our Andover location Tuesday morning. They we’re greeted by towering bookshelves, a wagon and some crates and bins filled to the brim with books.
“This is awesome,” exclaimed one of the young boys. He immediately went straight for a Clifford book and stuffed animal. Another student marveled at the Cat in the Hat section.
As they combed through book after book, the students settled onto the beanbags and carpets laid out in the make-shift library setup. Soon, a special guest arrived and everyone fell silent.
Elizabeth Lorayne, author of The Adventures of Piratess Tilly, joined us for a very exciting story time. The students, and many Colleagues of American Training, listened carefully as we learned of Tilly’s adventures.
“That’s my new favorite book,” said fourth-grader Disnelson Acosta.
Lorayne then handed out a signed copy to each student. A sea of “thank you’s” responded.
Off the students went to make bookmarks to keep in their new books. There they spent time coloring pictures of characters from Tilly’s story with character-shaped crayons.
The day wrapped up with the students reading stories from their new library and everyone sharing snacks like bookworms, or candy worms, giant cookies from If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, and vegetables from Peter Rabbit’s garden! There was even a cake that looked like the cover of The Giving Tree!
“The day was a huge success. We collected way more books than we ever thought we would. We have to thank everyone who donated. We really appreciate it. Your donations brought smiles to these little faces and they will bring smiles to many more in the years to come,” said director of the event Hiedi Keefer, Assistant Director of Specialized Housing.
Find out more about why we collected here. Thank you to all who donated and thank you the Mall at Rockingham Park, Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Liberty Mutual, and the Emmaus House for your donations as well.
If you didn’t get the chance to donate (or even if you did), but would still like to contribute, you can! On Wednesday night, April 22nd, the Andover Bookstore will be hosting a fundraiser for the school. A portion of all sales between 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. will go directly to the school to help them build their library. In addition, a bin will be placed at the store for people to make book donations.
Check out pictures from the bash below:
And in Rumbo, April 15th edition:
When a brave 5-year-old boy asks you to wear yellow before he goes in for a major operation to show that you’re with him, you pull out all of your yellow clothes and let him know you’re with him.
So after hearing about little Seth Lane’s request for the world to go yellow, his favorite color, on Friday, we complied.
Seth is battling SCID, severe combined immunodeficiency, otherwise known as Bubble Boy Disease. You can read more about his battle on his family’s blog and more about Yellow for Seth Day in this article.
Check out all of out brights and mellows below. And Seth, we’re with you! Stay strong little buddy!
Our friends from St. John’s Prep joined us Thursday, April 2 for the annual Day of Caring. For close to 10 years now, these students have dedicated their time on this special day to assisting us in whatever ways needed.
In past years they’ve done everything from building accessible garden boxes and yard-work at our residential homes to painting at our day programs.
“We look forward to having them and appreciate their assistance each and every year,” Steve Pellerin, VP and Director of Specialized Housing, said of the annual visit from the students.
This year, they joined us for a WOW! Magic project. They built several fabulous garden boxes! These planter boxes are raised from the ground making them wheelchair accessible so all of our Guests and Residents can enjoy them. They built them for each of our day program sites as well as several of our homes.
Check them out building the boxes here:
We’re already looking forward to filling these boxes with flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Thank you so much to all involved!
Our wonderful builders include freshmen Jack Trapani, Dante Ferrazza, Alexander Rizza, Cameron Keezer, Nicholas Vecchi, and Joe MacDonald, as well as parents Maria Keezer and Jeff Vecchi.
That’s Gaelic for “In our togetherness (as a team), castles are built.”
When we celebrate, we go big and St. Patrick’s Day was no exception! Check out our parties, our green and our ATI family having a blast in the photo album below!
Join us this Friday, March 20th, the First Day of Spring, at our Spring Fling Dance where we’ll ring in the warmer season with friends, dancing and fun.
The dance is open to all Guests and Residents of American Training as well as their friends and house-mates.
There will be snacks, group dances and lots of fun for all.
Time: 7 p to 9 p, pick up by 9 p please.
Place: 6 Campanelli Drive in Andover.
Hope to see you there!
Sometime in the weeks leading up to March 10, our Colleague Tammy sent us a list of coming “holidays” like International Day of Happiness (March 20) and more-than-worthy recognitions/celebrations like World Down Syndrome Day (March 21) and World Bipolar Day (March 30).
At the top of the list was a “holiday” we just had to kick the month off with…International Day of Awesomeness, IDOA, March 10.
So, last Friday, our Colleague Jenn sent out an email announcing IDOA. She started a trend that lasted all day by listing why each of the Colleagues in her department are so awesome. Email after email followed with Colleagues describing the ways in which the Colleagues in their departments are awesome. Needless to say, it was a pretty peppy office all day.
We continued the love on Monday, asking Colleagues to fill out a sheet, naming a Colleague and explaining why that Colleague is awesome. The results are below…
The Photos:
What began as Lawrence Rehabilitation Services Center, Incorporated, a small nonprofit in Lawrence back in 1979, has grown into the American Training family we know and love today.
How did we get here? A group of exceptional people with an intense love and passion for serving those in our community.
Below a few of our Colleagues, some who have been here since the very start, share some of their favorite moments and memories from the past 36 years.
Check out photos from throughout the years that show our growth as a family and the changes and growth in the places we’ve called home:
“Many years ago, in the early WOW! days, the Business Office had a poetry contest for Valentine’s Day. Attached is a poem I wrote reflecting StarWorks’ attitude at American Training. Although the purple walls and yellow stars are not here at Campanelli, the sentiment still rings true,” said Michaud.
The poem:
