One of Rainbows’ Guiding Principles is to “Be positive, celebrate success and recognize achievements”. One of the ways we do this with staff is through our 10:15+ Club. Every year on October 15 at 10:15 am, staff are picked up and taken for a day of activities and surprises. This year we visited Karg’s glass blowing store in Kechi, and then spent the rest of the day at the Wichita Art Museum touring their beautiful displays, eating together, recognizing members with milestone years of service and watching a touching movie about a man with developmental disabilities caring for his young daughter in “I am Sam”. We accepted 7 new members into 10:15+. Rainbows has 81 staff who have been with us for 10 years or longer. That is 36% of our staff!
Sharri Penrod recently retired after 31 years of working at Rainbows. Sharri started as a parent with Rainbows years ago when we served her son Greg. Sharri began volunteering and then she became an employee. Sharri served in many roles always willing to do what was needed of her. Most of her time was spent in the Finance Department working with child care billings, purchasing, and managing the federal food program for Rainbows. Sharri retired to spend more time with her husband Robert. Thank you, Sharri, for your many years of service.
Lorie Angelo, another member of 10:15+, is retiring November 18 after 23 years of faithful service. When Lorie started at Rainbows she brought with her a respite program that needed a new home. That is how Rainbows started providing services to over 100 children through in-home care, weekend center based respite, latch key, and Camp Woodchuck. For many years Lorie has been the supervisor for Rainbows’ Targeted Case Management, which serves 450 children and special needs foster care serving 15-20 children annually. She also helped Rainbows to begin serving children through the Autism Waiver and has represented Rainbows at many local and statewide work groups. Lorie has tirelessly kept the interests of children with special needs and their families at the forefront in any discussion or decision-making process that could impact them. We thank Lorie for the positive influence she has had on the lives of so many!
I am very appreciative of the talented and skilled people whom we have the privilege of working with each day. Thank you all for your dedicated work in revealing the masterpiece in each child.
Deb Voth
