New Leaf Link year end performance

Jeff Green | Jun 08, 2016

New Leaf Link (NeLL) celebrated the end of its eighth year of programming with the performance of a play about the environment that was based on Dickens' “A Christmas Carol” last Wednesday (June 1) at the Harrowsmith Free Methodist Church.

The play featured the 13 young adults who attended NeLL programming this winter, as well as volunteers. The group moved their twice-weekly program to the Free Methodist Church earlier this spring from their former home at St. Paul's Anglican in Sydenham.

“We had a great home at St. Paul's,” said NeLL founder, Karin Steiner, of the move to Harrowsmith, “but for accessibility and capacity reasons this is a more suitable space for our programs.”

NeLL has been well supported by individuals, businesses and groups from across South Frontenac over the years, and this year they received a grant from the township to help with the move to Harrowsmith.

“We have been supported by the community and some local foundations over the years, and this year we are very excited about our arts programming. We have Gary Rasberry doing music; Annie Milne doing puppets; and Christine Harvey doing drama. We have received a grant from the Community Foundation of Kingston and Area for our arts program, and we have been invited to make use of the Tett Centre in Kingston to do some work there. It's amazing what we have been able to do over the last year or so in the arts.”

New Leaf Link was established as a means to fill a gap for young adults who had graduated from School to Community classes and were living in South Frontenac, where there was no programming available at the time for residents of South Frontenac. Since then NeLL has developed three streams of day programming: skills and literacy; health and recreation; and arts and adapted technologies. Fees for the day programs are kept to a reasonable $30 per session and since there are no salaried staff, all grant money is used to augment programs.

“Every grant helps us to build our capacity to grow,” said Steiner, adding that NeLL is seeking support from the Ontario Arts Council to help set up a third day of programming. She would also like to see NeLL run a two-week camp in the summer.

“We really have become a community, and it is a long summer for many of our youth. They miss each other,” she said.

While NeLL was established partially out of frustration with the way the funding system for developmentally disabled young adults was set up, it has become something more, an asset to South Frontenac.

“We generally all care for each other. We are happy to come together, be together and learn together. We talk together about our issues; we share news. We know what we are all about and where we want to take this,” said Steiner.