Center provides hope, services for intellectual and developmental disability people
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Abel Hernandez looks forward to movie day.
He also looks forward to visiting with friends. He along with others with intellectual and developmental disabilities attend the Texana Learning Center every day.
“I like that this place has helped me get a job,” Hernandez said. “But I like that I have close friends here.”
Texana learning center and the Arc of Matagorda County partner together and assist people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the area.
“We are advocates and provide group support for each person and family that needs it,” said Jo Halbert, president of The Arc of Matagorda County.
The center services 46 people with life skills such as cooking, helping with community jobs and classes that help with their everyday development.
They also provide daily activities like movie day, bowling, shopping and special outings.
When a member enrolls to the program, they are asked what they want to do and be a part of.
“We help them choose and realize their goals of what they want to do,” said Pete Hale, manager of the Edith Armstrong Center where Texana is housed.
This is done to determine what their needs are and see what their ability of certain talents are. Some skills are lost if they are not practiced, he said.
“We are here to reinforce that so that won’t happen,” he said.
The Arc of Matagorda County owns the Edith Armstrong Building as well as two group homes in Bay City, which Texana leases from them.
Some of the members of the center are dropped off by family members each morning, and others use the transportation services provided by the center.
Members spend the day in small groups learning living skills activity classes such as counting change, work on puzzles, and take hygiene classes or cooking.
Skills such as washing clothes and sorting them are taught to the members.
“The individual comes to us and we try to maintain living skills,” Hale said. “We are looking for their long term future, where they can transfer what they learned out in the real world.”
Other members keep community jobs and work once a week.
Hernandez, who is from Palacios, takes transit everyday and works once a week outside of the center as a janitor, this is part of his rehabilitation, Hale said.
“People want to come here because they enjoy learning and doing activities that will help them,” he said. “It’s about unity and helping each other too.”
The Arc of Matagorda County was founded in 1955 as a support group to aid families who had children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
This month, the Matagorda Commissioners Court approved a proclamation recognizing the month of March as Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.
“We want for everyone to know that we are here and help those that need it,” said Halbert.
Halbert has been an advocate for intellectual and developmental disability people for more than 20 years.
When she was young, she grew up knowing two people that were mentally challenged, she said.
Her grandmother had also suffered an accident, causing her to have mental health issues.
“My father taught me to accept all people and after all this, I was interested and finding ways to help them,” she said.
Hale’s father was a special education teacher and his interest grew from that.
“It is heartwarming when someone can tell you thank you and see them progress in certain areas, it is something I can’t really express. It makes them happy, but it does a whole different thing to you inside,” he said.
Texana Behavioral Healthcare Clinic at Bay City is opened from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Located at:
400 Avenue F
Bay City, TX 77414
979-245-9231