Unum helps disabled at Orange Grove

Spaceships crashed into planets, dolphins jumped for beach balls and bags of popcorn were doused with butter Tuesday as speech therapist Betsy Fryar demonstrated a new learning computer at the Orange Grove Center.

Classroom 17, the result of a $39,215 renovation paid for primarily by Unum, features a person-lifting system, special cause-and-effect learning tools and a touchscreen computer in what will be the first of three Unum Learning Centers built to serve people with cognitive disabilities.

Becca McClure, a physical therapist at Orange Grove, demonstrated a lift system that can move clients, as the disabled are called, around the classroom or into a restroom.

"This gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move people around from place to place," she said.

Other unique features in the new classroom, which holds six students, include a radio on a timed switch, fans and lamps that can be used as teaching tools and a Rube Goldberg-style marble-dropping machine.

Kyle Hauth, executive director for Orange Grove, said it is only through the generosity of local residents that the group is able to fulfill its mission.

"Orange Grove has always survived only through divine intervention," he said. "A lot of time when people visit Orange Grove, they had no idea there was this much going on, with so many people being served in one place."

Mr. Hauth thanked Bob Best, Unum's chief operating officer, for the company's funding the project, which will add up to over $100,000 when all three classrooms are completed.

The gift to Orange Grove, Mr. Best said, is a small but important part of Unum's overall charitable giving.

In 2009 the company paid out $6.6 million in charitable donations, including $1.2 million from employees. The company made $500,000 multiyear commitments to Hamilton County Schools and Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation, and gave tens of thousands to the Hunter Museum and the Tennessee Aquarium, company officials said.

"We have a fairly large charitable contribution each year, and with Unum's disability business, this is just a natural fit. It was a no-brainer," Mr. Best said.

Dr. Rick Rader, director of habilitation, said he is thankful for the new funding, and that the most important aspect of Orange Grove's work will continue to be empathic interaction with the disabled.

"The real magic is in the thousands of transactions between the staff and the clients; the real interaction is what makes this place grow," he said. "That happens thousands of times a day, and it's not heralded and not tracked."

Orange Grove has worked with intellectual disabilities since 1953, according to Dillard Edgemon, Orange Grove president, and offers education, vocational help, a place to live, therapy and health care, recreation and counseling.

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