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Mosaic Village, a project developed by ALG with the city of Cohoes, is a beautiful, new facility that features a kitchen and dining area, a smaller living space with a television, a common community space, a workout room and a mirrored studio. Located in Cohoes, the Village is near a bus stop and completely accessible. Adult Education is currently scheduling programming with ALG that will be offered in the space and open to the public.
This fall, Adult Education will hold several classes in the afternoon and evening at the Mosaic Village complex. In October, Friends Connection, a social class, will host a Gathering Party in the common community space. In November, students will be baking in the kitchen. Throughout the semester, small group budgeting classes will be offered.
For spring semester, classes, such as weight training, dance and yoga, will be added. Collaborative work with other community partners as well as many other exciting opportunities are also being planned.
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To say the least, it has been a very busy time in the finance department. Since the announcement of our planned merger, the finance departments of both agencies began to meet. Our first objective was to get to know each other and then we set out to define our roles going forward. We have continued to meet regularly and I’m happy to report that this transition has been a very smooth process.
That’s not to say we haven’t come across some challenges. The challenges have included developing strategies for integrating our systems, including bringing different payroll procedures together and combining similar but slightly different program and service notes. Our two agencies also have small but important differences in our accounting systems and how we approach our general ledgers. And to make things really interesting we have two separate fiscal years!
Wildwood’s IT department has begun the transition of managing ALG systems as ALG contracted their IT to an outside vendor. Likewise, our Facilities Services Department has already begun a few ALG projects as well, as this was another contracted service at ALG.
There is no doubt this is an exciting time and already we can see the potential of bringing two like-minded, fiscally strong institutions together. It may be a busy time but the excitement of the possibilities makes all the work worthwhile!
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Though we’ve continued to hold regular, virtual townhall meetings to update everyone on how our pending merging is proceeding, we’ve come to realize that the online meetings just aren’t convenient for everyone to attend.
To rectify that, we have expanded our communication efforts including making a special edition of the Wildwood News as well as featuring this article in this Reaching Out newsletter. We will dedicate an edition of the Wildwood Digest to the merger shortly after it becomes official.
In the meantime, we’d like you to know that Wildwood’s leadership has been meeting weekly with the goal of making sure that the merger does not in any way interrupt our all-important supports and services. That means we’ve been discussing how to merge operations, payroll, human resources, accounting, facilities services and other departments while making sure our IT functions are properly integrated.
We’ve also been meeting with representatives of OPWDD on a weekly basis to ensure that everything is going along smoothly in terms of operations and regulations. We are happy to report that this process has been moving along without any snags.
Our staff that will be joining us from ALG will (or have already) received a letter from our HR department outlining things like holidays, vacations, time off and other day-to-day concerns. It is exciting to bring all these talented professionals into the Wildwood community.
We are very happy to report that all regulatory authorizations have been issued and that we now know that the merger will be official on 10/1/22!
Many things have gone on behind the scenes with many people working diligently to bring this about. It is an exciting time at Wildwood. As always, thank you for your support!
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Join us any time between 9am and 12pm!
Take a walk around beautiful Cook Park in Colonie, pick up your t-shirt, enjoy entertainment, refreshments and the Community Fair!
For register or for more information, please visit https://p2p.onecause.com/walkforwildwood
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Advocacy happens every day. It’s especially impactful when the right people listen and take action. We, the United People’s Self Advocacy group, are fortunate to have our CEO, Lou Deepe, attend our meetings. Recently, he actively solicited our opinion on areas of improvement here at Wildwood. Several of us use walkers and wheelchairs and Building 1 didn’t have push button bathroom door openers. We voiced our concerns to Lou. Bryan Norton, Self-Advocate said, “Lou does listen. He’s honorable and trustworthy. He says what he means and does what he says.”
Lou spoke with our Director of Operations Mark Normandin and within a month, push button door openers were installed on the second floor bathrooms. Mark said he will continue to work on these improvements and advocate for funds for additional bathroom door openers to be added into his budget. Bryan said, “We’re patient. We understand that it takes time to complete any project. “
Bryan stated, “It feels great to be asked my opinion and have it count. “