The month of May brings a rush of activities and community work and training. We have three “toy bags” in circulation in three pre-school programs, and are finalizing an evaluation so that we can get feedback on how they are working. Much of the work in the next two months is based on the completion of the one year grant cycle from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts (CFWM) , as we work to document and demonstrate what we have accomplished with their generous support.

We have plans to distribute two more toy bags in the next few weeks. One will be given to the New Beginnings Childcare Center in Springfield after a staff training session on May 31st, and another toy bag will be donated to the pre-school Occupational Therapists in the Holyoke Schools, also following a training session set up for the first week of June.

I have been working on a fun small project, building a “ball ramp” that kids can assemble and use to roll different sized balls and toys cars in a classroom. I’m hoping to get several small design projects out for trial in June. Along with the ball ramp, there is a fun “bottle baby delivery truck” and a new batch of ball stomp toys built by Kevin Cote, my OT student intern from Springfield College. Kevin is also going to be helping with getting feedback from the centers where we have placed the toy bags, and helping gather the information we need to complete our evaluation of the project since we received the CFWM grant.

I also played a music gig on May 14th at the Lumberyard Restaurant in Amherst that raised another $95. for the Playscape Project. I want to thanks Elissa Maruca and Kelly Regan for their kind donations, and for coming out to to hear the music!!