A LIFE OF LEISURE

Do It Leisure was created as a club by recreation students at Chico State back in 1975. It merged with the Work Training Center in 1981 and has been an integral part of the Center’s programming ever since, offering recreation and leisure activities to adults with developmental disabilities in and around Butte County. Andrea Moriarty, the program coordinator for Do It Leisure since 1997, knows what kind of freedom and enjoyment it offers folks living with disabilities. For the last three years, she’s been trying to resurrect the activities participants used to enjoy before COVID shut the world down. “It’s my full intention that by the beginning of 2024, we’re going to have a lot of our programs back up and running,” Andrea says. Those programs include summer camps, out-of-town trips to baseball games and water parks, bingo nights, karaoke, and even trips abroad. “We’ve taken them to Mexico, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Seattle, and even on cruises,” Andrea says. “If you can imagine CARD, we provide the same kind of activities, but on a more specialized and intimate level.”

Do It Leisure is just starting to open things up again after months of providing limited services due to restrictions put in place by the Department of Public Health and other entities. For the folks who take advantage of the services they offer, it’s like coming out of a dark room into a lighted one. “We just had a dance on June 10th in collaboration with ARC at the ARC Pavilion,” Andrea says. “We had about 150 clients show up, and it was great because I hadn’t seen some of these folks in three years or so. We had a DJ, a photo booth, and a snack bar. Everyone just had a wonderful time.” Typically, Do It Leisure hosts about six dances during the year which are open not just to the folks in the program, but to the community at large. Their next one will be on Halloween.

Providing recreational activities to folks with disabilities has been shown to be helpful in providing them with real-world skills like safety, communication, and money management. Some of the folks in the Do It Leisure program have been involved steadily for 40, even 50 years. Andrea has known many of them since she started with the program over 25 years ago. “It’s like a family,” she says.

Programs like Do It Leisure are integral to the success and overall health of a community and it’s vital they continue to exist. The services they provide for those with disabilities go beyond what they might be able to achieve alone. Unfortunately, all too often, programs are cut because funding is not what it could be. In the last several years, the Work Training Center has had to stop putting on the annual Fourth of July celebration in Bidwell Park–a beloved community event for over 50 years–because there just isn’t any money. Andrea hopes that nonprofit organizations and other businesses will want to partner with the Work Training Center to help it continue to provide opportunities for the disabled in our communities. Chico is a great town, and it’s organizations like Do It Leisure that make it that way. “We are striving to get right back to helping our folks get back out and recreate, enjoy their community, and learn new things,” Andrea says.

Do It Leisure is part of the Work Training Center, a non-profit in Chico that has been dedicated to helping people with disabilities learn work and life skills for over 60 years. For more information on the services and programs they offer, visit www.wtc.org.