Greetings and Happy Holidays to our Ryan’s Reach supporters and friends!

2022 is swiftly coming to a close and we’d like to update you on what we’ve been up to since the end of 2021.

What’s new? Our two group homes are self-sustaining now. We’re in need of extra donations to make the memories for our residents that all of us treasure and need to enrich our lives. These extras involve in-home therapy, outings and holiday parties, just to name a few.

We would like to press pause on the big events and are looking to add to our monthly donor list to provide the funds for these extras. We may plan fundraisers in the future but they do take a lot of time away from doing the work of observing, evaluating and improving the day-to-day lives of the TBI individuals in our care. Last year and this year we are assessing, refining and looking to the future for Ryan’s Reach.

If you aren’t able to be a monthly donor we hope you might consider an end- of-year donation to Ryan’s Reach so that we can continue to make life better for the folks you’ll read about in this newsletter. Here’s the link to our donation page if you already know you are planning to donate. We’ll post it again at the end of this letter so if you want to read it all you won’t forget. Your donations are so appreciated.

This year we concentrated on “assisting” with the 22nd Annual Dove Dash, which is now a 1K and a 5K along with the Pancake Breakfast.

The Dove Dash now includes a 1K and 5K run and a Pancake Breakfast. Ryan’s Reach assisted with this year’s 22nd Annual Dove Dash, and High Hopes Head Injury Program, led by director Mark Desmond, took the lead in this event. This allowed for a new energy, additional volunteers and a fresh look. We’re confident that the new leadership assumed by High Hopes will result in even greater results as we move forward, and that more TBI survivors will benefit from this event.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Funds raised from the Dove Dash are going to the very same community of people as always – students at High Hopes Injury Program. Laura Lee Fekete started the Dove Dash in Dove Canyon. She joined forces with Ryan’s Reach after her first five years and together we built this event in size and recognition until it has become a well-known and beloved charity run in Orange County.

For at least 17 years all the proceeds from this event have gone to Ryan’s Reach, which in turn funded scholarships so that those with traumatic brain injury could attend High Hopes located in Tustin, California.

Both non-profits have worked very hard side by side and will continue to do so. The change is mostly in Ryan’s Reach marketing, and the funds are now going directly to High Hopes as they assume more of the responsibility and expense for the event. We anticipate that this will continue in the future. The event is the same, the participants are the same and the beneficiaries are the same! So don’t be confused as you see more mention of High Hopes and a little less of Ryan’s Reach. We will always be working together. Here are some great moments from this year’s Dove Dash!

In this end-of-year newsletter we want to feature our focus for this past year – more activities for the residents!

What seemed most important this year was to take a break from our non-stop fundraising efforts and take time to evaluate what is working well and how we could do better. We want the homes to be not just a physical place providing a safe and nurturing environment, but also a place that provides the experiences of life and memories that a home also creates.

It’s also important to try to facilitate the ability of our residents to progress in their recoveries - body, mind and spirit. This sets the stage for us to concentrate on additional home therapy and social activities. This is just some of what we’ve been doing this year at Ryan’s Reach.

Mike Michaelis, Ryan Corbin’s stepfather, has been the group home administrator for both homes from the beginning. He had planned on finding a replacement for this position and found Elaine Sanchez, who started with Ryan’s Reach as a full-time caregiver. Elaine showed initiative and a desire to make suggestions and improvements. She has a family member who has worked at High Hopes for years, so she is more than familiar with the challenges of TBI. While she was learning the job, Elaine needed to wait to assume the position full-time as her family grew by two children, Jonah and Emma. Her husband Leo is also on staff at Ryan’s Reach and he and Elaine feel the time is right for her to take on the full time job of Group Home Administrator.

We also would like to highlight Bertha Lopez . Not only did she step in as administrator when Elaine was on maternity leave but last year she spent a lot of time organizing outings and planning many celebrations throughout the year. Her fiancé Lorenzo is always up for helping us at our events and participating in our parties Bertha brings a special empathy to the work we do at Ryan’s Reach. Her son Martin is a TBI survivor himself and she knows intimately the road that our residents and families are on.

We are so grateful for her professionalism and the heart she lends us as a part-time employee. Although Elaine is back now full time from her maternity leave, all this past year Bertha brought novelty, color, fun and gift giving. Our residents made crafts for family members on Mother’s Day like these awesome birdhouses, and sat for personalized caricatures for Father’s Day. Bertha organized games, Easter egg decorating and an Easter egg hunt in the back yard with families as well as good food. The 4th of July celebration was so much fun with a backyard barbecue, water balloon toss and rousing game of Hot Potato! Thanks to Bertha and Lorenzo, Ryan’s Reach provided much more this year, creating special moments and heartwarming memories.

Our Ryan’s Reach guys were invited to join another group home of disabled residents for outrigger rowing and lunch. What a fabulous activity, safe and supervised, for a group that often doesn’t have options to get out on the water and enjoy the ocean. Thank You Agape Cottages for the invitation!!

Four of our residents attended the Bingo and Pizza Party Night at High Hopes put on by the National Charity League. Otto, Sean, David and Darryl had pizza and played Bingo, winning games along with other High Hopes students. Thank you High Hopes!

Our staff is great at remembering birthdays and making a big deal of our residents on their special days. Also we have loved going on outings this year with the residents who express an interest in participating, including going to a movie, visiting the Santa Ana Zoo, bowling with High Hopes and going to a couple of Angels games thanks to a generous donation of a suite by ARB Construction. Thank you, Tim and Cheri Healy!

We have to give a special mention to a celebration we planned for Labor Day this year. We brought an exceptional singer, Felson Palad, to come sing for our group again and thought we would do it at the end of the summer like we did last year. This year we decided to invite the neighbors and set up the event in the cul-de-sac. Our Tustin neighbors know OF us but don’t really know us. This gave us an excuse to be together and tell them more about who is residing on their block. We are so lucky to have a home for RR residents on this block, with longtime residents who know each other. Now it feels like they know us. Felson sang for an hour and knocked their socks off. Everyone brought some food to share and before long we had a bunch of people up dancing in the street! We all agreed we will make this an annual Labor Day party on Lear Lane.

Ongoing Therapy for Residents:

Many of the families of our residents are involved in making therapy schedules for their TBI loved one. Some families have more means than others and some really need our help to find activities to keep them moving and active.

Three of our residents attend High Hopes weekly; it is just ten minutes away. A couple of our guys are able to hop on the Access bus to go to work out at Reimagine Fitness Center, a fully inclusive and accessible therapeutic rehabilitation and exercise center near Ryan’s Reach. Several are able to get in the pool once or twice a week for therapy or just to float and get some sunshine while others are receiving therapy. Rebecca is fortunate to receive Myofacial Release for her tight muscles from Luiza at the Ryan’s Reach residence and once a month on average we have yoga therapist Amy lead a class. This has been so wonderful to observe more participation and improvement in balance and calm focus.

Brian is our newest resident and he moved into the Tustin home in June. We are so blessed to have him join our group of TBI survivors. He is one of the most positive young men I have met, particularly after a car accident and TBI approximately 10 years ago. He has a smile that lights up the room and he routinely melts our hearts with statements of contentment, gratitude and desire to live a life that gives back to others. He expressed a desire to attend church so Mike and Lindy are happy to pick him up and bring him along with Ryan whenever possible to enjoy the services they attend. He has expressed such gratitude that he’s been re-connected to a faith community and that makes us extra happy too.

He was a lifeguard before his accident and we are delighted that we’ve been able to help him get back in the water by coming to Ryan’s pool when it’s heated for his therapy and another Olympic size community pool in Fountain Valley when some of the other residents are getting water therapy there. His TBI causes him to have tremors and so he needs assistance at times with the physical aspects of daily life but he is so smart and so kind and we can learn a lot from his remarkable outlook on life.

Besides providing full time care for our residents we’ve been happy to offer respite care if we can help a family that needs to “come up for air”. We’d like to highlight a couple of dear TBI survivors who have utilized our Respite Care option.

Thank you so much if you have taken the time to read all of this and look at the photos since to me they tell you what you need to know. Here again is the link to make an end of year donation. We encourage you to consider being a monthly donor of any amount as the consistency helps us know we can continue to provide the level of care we know these folks deserve. A one-time gift is also appreciated and you can donate here.

We also have a tradition of providing a link to our Ryan’s Reach Christmas Wish List in December so if you prefer you can browse the list of things that will refresh and warm up the homes.

Ryan’s Reach wishes you a Blessed and Merry Christmas and Happy and Abundant New Year!

Lindy