Bridge21ParkCity is thrilled to announce that Deb Hartley has accepted the position as our Executive Director.
Deb has a wealth of community knowledge in both the real estate and non profit realms.
She will be instrumental in furthering our mission to develop stable housing opportunities and strengthen community relationships for the neuro-diverse population in Park City and Summit County.
For more information, contact Deb Hartley directly at deb@bridge21parkcity.com
As 2021 comes to a close, we want to thank you for staying engaged with us as we work to solve this much needed and intricate housing puzzle. Bridge21 is an endeavor that is a grassroots, community wide calling and we need each other to build a hopeful future for our friends and family members with special needs. You may think this doesn’t concern you or you have nothing to offer but if you’re reading this let me assure you, YOU do!
B21 is all about housing and building and solving this puzzle for the future. Maybe you don’t think that’s your thing. I get it as I once did too. Five years ago I was on the board of the National Ability Center. They asked if I could attend a meeting of a group of parents who were coming together to address housing. I was astonished to find out there was NOTHING in the way of housing options for young adults graduating out of The Learning Center. After all the years of support and inclusion offered through the PCSD and NAC, these families were literally moving away to other states where there were more opportunities for their loved ones.
The saving grace for me was my son was only in 6th grade, I had witnessed a neurodiverse Co-Housing neighborhood be built from the ground up in NC and I had time to dedicate to this cause. That group became Park City Housing and Transition and a few years later we focused solely on housing and got our 501C3 status and a Board of dedicated Trustees.
Sometimes I wonder and worry if our Bridge21 mission is articulated well enough to the young people we are hoping to serve. My son recently protested dressing up (which means I asked him to wear a flannel shirt and jeans) for our B21 Holiday Party, he said, “What do I have to do with a housing project?!”
My husband looked at me and quietly said, ”EVERYTHING”.
When we are young, we don’t want to tackle the things that challenge us. I never enjoyed puzzles when I was a kid. I didn’t like Legos or Lincoln Logs either. Looking back, there were a few “housing projects” I enjoyed building. Growing up in NC I loved building sand castles. I was always hopeful my creation might last. Upon returning to the shore the following morning I’d find the tide had completely washed it away. No worries though, I could start over with my spade and bucket and little sister.
Another “housing project” I recall fondly happened after a big snow we got one February. We built a snow fort village and a few snow horses we could actually sit on. That fun lasted a few cold days before the whole village melted.
As a parent, my kids , my husband and I tried many times to construct gingerbread houses. We had visions of sugar plumbs and a storybook finish in mind. In reality, most of our gingerbread houses looked like a modern art experiment in a candy shop and left us with 4 kids on a sugar high. Really fun but WOW what a cost!
All of those “housing projects” are fleeting. Easy come easy go.
Bridge21 is working (and it is WORK-a labor of love actually) to put this complicated puzzle together. I’m still not a puzzle fan but many in my extended family love putting puzzles together. I’d say B21 has completed most of the outside edges of this housing puzzle with more connections this year than ever before. Thanks to our Board for the countless meetings held this year with developers, city and county leaders, we are much closer to reaching our dream of neurodiverse housing.
To all of you who have brought your puzzle pieces to us in 2021, thank you! To the Mama and Papa Bears holding out the priceless gift of hope and tenacity, the families and friends who came together week after week last summer for our B21 Buds&Blooms garden experience, the B21 leaders who shine brightly in the special needs community, our financial donors, awareness builders and community partners, we say YES to 2022 and the beautiful, solid foundation being laid for tangible housing solutions in Park City and Summit County. If you would like to contribute financially to Bridge21, all gifts will go towards matching the $50,000 gift from a very generous supporter. You can make your donations at our Donate page: https://www.bridge21parkcity.com/donations
Wishing you all many blessings this coming year. Let’s DREAM BIG TOGETHER and complete this housing puzzle!
Written by Liza Howell, Parent Liaison, Bridge21 Board of Trustees
Looking at the Park City forecast, chilly weather is incoming! This afternoon we will put our fabulous B21 Buds&Blooms garden beds, to bed. We will cover them up with heavy duty frost cloths and hope that our still green tomatoes will survive to ripen red and make it to the salad bowl!
What did we grow this past summer besides gorgeous flowers and yummy vegetables? In my opinion we grew the following:
Friendship; Awareness; Confidence; Inspiration; Hope; Community
Bridge21 families, friends, special ed teachers and community leaders came together throughout the summer and planned, planted, created, built, watered, nurtured and miraculously HARVESTED something lovely and awe inspiring!
Together we did it!
Last Spring, when we committed to Summit Community Gardens, it seemed a wild idea…but we reserved 2 plots because we wanted our kids to have SOMETHING special to look forward to throughout the summer. Many of them participate in Young Life Capernaum during the school year. YL takes a summer break and we wanted to continue bimonthly gatherings. Outdoor gardening seemed a perfect venue as it provided space to meet, have a snack, do a craft and get digging!
Our B21 BOD president, Stephanie Polukoff quipped, ”And just like that, we are farmers!” In May, when it was time to amend the soil, we weeded the plots and added Earthworm “Castings” (which is a nice way to describe earthworm poop ). We watched a few informative Zoom classes by Summit Community Gardens and ordered Zone 5 High Altitude seeds. Any time I felt overwhelmed, I remembered the wise words my sister (a former community garden director and landscape architect) told me:
JUST STICK IT IN THE GROUND AND IT WILL GROW.
Was she right or was she right?!? This is a good motto for Bridge21 right now. There comes a point in every process where it’s time to act. Nothing ever grows from good ideas not firmly planted and tended. We are planting seeds of hope and awareness. The housing crisis for young adults with intellectual disabilities will only be overcome with hope (for near future options) and awareness (1. that currently Park City and Summit County have no plans to address this situation and 2. that communities throughout America are addressing the issue with creative housing solutions).
Even though family after family has moved away or sent their young adults to other communities in other states, we now have the attention of Mountainlands Community Housing Trust. This compassionate, effective organization has been successfully addressing affordable housing for decades here in Summit and Wasatch counties.
Pat Matheson, executive director of MCHT, has had several meetings with B21. Recently, Pat invited us to participate in their Central Village Apartment and Condominium units at the new Silver Creek Development. Bridge 21 families and friends are being offered a first look at 12 ground level 1,2 and 3 bedroom apartments, plus 2 ADA type A for sale condos. So here it is: a seed of hope and awareness, planted into a partnership where it can actually GROW!
Please join us Thursday evening Sept 30, 6 pm at Central Village for an Open House. Even if your child is too young or already set somewhere else, JOIN US because THIS IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION for Park City!
Help Bridge21 plant a seed to grow a community groundswell of interest and action!
Big difference. Neither appear to have life. One is hopeless while the other is hopeful!
Hidden away in my mud room sits the Bridge21 / Summit Community Gardens “garden”. Our B21 Garden is in the form of seed and bulb packets which have pretty promising pictures on the outside packaging. However, if you take a peek inside and you’ll see tiny seeds or large ugly bulbs. They are dormant, waiting for the snow to thaw, the last frost to come and the soil to be prepared.
Come June, with a little TLC, proper soil amendment, sun and water, they will spring into life and grow into the beautiful flowers and veggies the packet picture promised! This is a good analogy for Bridge21 right now. Did you think perhaps we’d given up, disbanded or abandoned ship?
Not a chance! We are here to tell you, we’re not dead, we’ve been dormant!
During the forced solitude of the past 13 months, Bridge21 Leadership has been working on our strategic planning, building our board, researching various housing models, rebuilding our website, continuing to raise awareness and meeting with interested individuals. We are hopeful that these preparations will lead to a beautiful B21 bloom!
You are invited to help GROW Bridge21 this Spring by participating in our community gardening effort. We will have a B21 Garden Calendar of specific times when Families and Friends can get dirty together and enjoy the fresh air and Vitamin D we all desperately need! Check out the Summit Community Gardens website and volunteer with B21 on Wednesdays. If you’d like to be included in B21’s upcoming Mama Bear potluck picnics (you do not have to be a mother of a special needs child to participate, just a loving advocate for this population) then text Liza Howell @ 919-619-1182.
Spring is here and it’s time to sprout!
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