Fort Wayne’s Turnstone Center has been empowering people with disabilities to achieve their highest potential for more than 80 years.
The organization’s services are unduplicated in the region and meet a vital community need for children and adults with disabilities.
Programs include therapeutic intervention, early education, case management, adult day services, health and wellness programming, sports and recreation opportunities, and more.
In addition, Turnstone offers adaptive sports programs for youth, ages 5 and up, adults, and veterans who have physical or visual, intellectual, or developmental disabilities.
Here, WBOI’s Julia Meek explores the evolution of these services with project leaders Rena Shown and Lauren Widenhofer, and how World Para Athletics Championships are scoring a big win for everyone in the community.
If you are interested in learning more, you can visit the Turnstone Center website.
Here is a transcript of our conversation:
Julia Meek: Rena Shown, Lauren Widenhofer, welcome.
Rena Shown: Hi.
Lauren Widenhofer: Hi.
Julia Meek: The ties your organization has with the community these 80 plus years are absolutely remarkable. Would you remind us of Turnstone's core mission?
Rena Shown: Turnstone's mission is to empower people with disabilities to achieve their highest potential, and we do that by providing comprehensive therapeutic services and programs.
Julia Meek: So, Rena, you are all about the diverse-ability and creating possibilities. How does that define your attitude as well as the approach you take to serving your population?
Rena Shown: You know people with disabilities are unique. There's different abilities out there and in our community, where we have to understand how to meet people where they are.
And I think we all bring that to our jobs every day. We want to understand the individual, what their individual needs are, and how we can help them accomplish their goals.
By doing so we've created really unique treatment plans for each person that comes through our doors, and last year alone, we served 4683 individuals.
So, that's a lot of treatment plans and growth plans and educational plans for these individuals who are attending Turnstone services.
Lauren Widenhofer: I think something that I see as a common personality trait amongst our staff is that we all truly believe everyone deserves the chance to live their best life.
And I think that the work we're doing at Turnstone really proves that day in and day out.
Julia Meek: And the scope of your healing programs, for example, age, ability and area specific, you seemingly have something for everyone.
And as you're talking about that's a lot of diverseability, a lot of possibility, a lot of programs going on. How do you develop these programs, these activities? How do you know what even to bring to the table?
Rena Shown: Well, we start by listening to our clients. Over the years, Turnstone has grown to offer one service and then another service and another service,
And we've been known to really try to wrap those services around the whole family and understand what is it that they need before launching into an additional program or service.
We do surveys that clients are able to give us feedback on, and we have close relationships within our client advisory group, for example, where the clients are able to give feedback and help us determine what is missing from their scope of services that they might need.
We just want to remove barriers for families. So, transportation can oftentimes be a big barrier when you're trying to get from appointment to appointment.
If we can schedule those all under one roof, as we do at Turnstone, then that eliminates that transportation barrier for a lot of families.
Julia Meek: How rewarding is it just to be with the people that you are dealing with, to be there and have the chance to be able to help them?
Lauren Widenhofer: Yeah, it's something very unique and spectacular, especially to me, personally, not in a client facing position.
We have a unique ability to form relationships with some of our clients and just seeing their lives truly changed through the interactions and services that they receive on a daily, weekly or monthly basis at Turnstone is very life giving.
Julia Meek: It's compelling to the whole community. I commend you, and also, I think that you're fortunate to be in that position of such care and caregiving.
Now add sports, okay, in a big Paralympic way, as a matter of fact. What does this mean for your Turnstone community, as well as the national, dare I say, international sports scene?
Lauren Widenhofer: So, we just finished hosting the World ParaVolley World Cup for sitting volleyball this past October.
It was a fantastic three-week-long tournament where we welcomed almost 500 international guests from around the globe. There were 20 teams from 15 different countries here to compete in sitting volleyball and gain world ranking points for the Paralympics.
Julia Meek: That is so cool. Now, for anybody out there that doesn't know what seated volleyball is, one-sentence rundown?
Lauren Widenhofer: Very similar to standing volleyball. It's a lot of amputees who are playing the sport, and they are just playing volleyball in a sitting position.
Julia Meek: What is the power? What is the rush of watching a game like that? Any interesting sports event, of course, with any sort of player playing it, but in that case, that seated action, what's it feel like, the experience to you?
Lauren Widenhofer: We did try and play amongst a couple of our staff members, and wow, when you take away the ability to play with your legs and the power that your legs give you in a sport, especially like volleyball.
It's insane what these athletes can do with just their core and upper body strength. And to see them compete at the highest level for this sport was amazing.
Julia Meek: And it's a big deal. This is a big rah-rah sport event.
Rena Shown: Yeah, I mean, these athletes are the top athletes of their sport in the entire world. The Paralympics run parallel to the Olympics every four years.
So, the athletes that you know and admire in the Olympics, the athletes in the Paralympics are competing three weeks after that, and if you just give it a shot, you'll grow to love some of those athletes as well.
Seeing the sitting volleyball like we did in Fort Wayne, it's such a fast-paced sport, there's a lot of rallying and points and back and forth through the team, so it keeps you really engaged as a spectator.
Julia Meek: I am kind of curious. Fort Wayne is a big sports town, has a lot of good team spirit and is for all of those sports. How is that making its impression as it takes over the city?
Rena Shown: Well, you know, sports is a common denominator for families and people in our community. Everybody seems to love and gravitate towards sports, at least in one way, shape, form or another.
And so, for us, the community came around, the international community came around this event and learned to love the sport of sitting volleyball through connecting with their country.
So we had citizens in our community from Egypt that were connecting with the Egyptian team. Same goes with the Indian team.
And so, we had a lot of interaction from the community in the international community that we have here in Fort Wayne, mixing in with sport, which was a lot of fun to see.
Julia Meek: [chuckles] Of course, it's excitement. Now let's do a little bit of number crunching. How has the big push for sports diversity changed your profile over there at Turnstone?
And what about street cred that goes with-- you've got the teams, you've got the team spirit, you've got it happening over there.
Lauren Widenhofer: So, this was the second international event that Turnstone has hosted, and we can feel the momentum building, especially after this one.
The last time we hosted an event was in 2019 and the momentum was killed by covid, and now we're so excited. We can just feel the community behind us, especially with the Paralympic games being in LA in 2028.
You know, it's here on American soil, and Turnstone can be a catalyst for more competition.
Rena Shown: And we hope to be. We're one of nine US Olympic and Paralympic training sites in the country, and we want people in the world to know that they can come to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and train at our facility.
Teams can come here, individuals can come here, and they can benefit from the services we provide at Turnstone.
Julia Meek: That is fantastic news and okay, is there room at the Plassman Athletic Center for even more? I mean, where could you go next? What could we be doing now?
Rena Shown: There's absolutely more opportunity for us to grow and do what we have been doing at Turnstone and continue that at a grander scale.
We're already looking at the next international event that we might be able to host leading into the LA '28 games. So what that means is more international competition for the community to A, volunteer for or B, be a spectator at.
And we already host a number of national and regional tournaments in the adaptive sport world.
So, you can come out to Turnstone all throughout the months of January, February or March, and see one of our adaptive sport tournaments that we host here in the community and be a spectator and see the energy that's behind the sports that are played at the Plassman Athletic Center.
Julia Meek: Go, Team, teams, I should say. [all chuckle] Yeah, that's great, great news. Now, okay, your own health center and collaborating with organizations like Hope's Harbor, this is the holistic approach to your whole-family care, which you've got such a wonderful reputation for.
These services being developed, how are they being received in this fast paced 21st century.
Rena Shown: This summer, we offered for the first time, pediatric intensive therapy programs where people from the community and from out of the state even were able to come to Turnstone and get therapy for a week, two weeks, up to three weeks, for their child with a disability.
And as part of that, we collaborated with Hope's Harbor. They are a accommodation service in the medical field.
They work a lot with Lutheran Hospital in their pediatric unit, but they had space to help out with Turnstone, and have allowed through this partnership, the families that are coming into our pediatric therapy program to stay there while they're receiving services at Turnstone.
That's important to us, because it keeps the family together, and it keeps the child in a position where they can get the therapy that they need in a quick burst and then go back into their communities or go back home and work on those therapies that they learned while they were here.
Julia Meek: That's fantastic for these families. And speaking of going places, your complex, nestled right there in the heart of the city's north side, is a bustling hub of activity all by itself, back there, being all quiet up in the front.
What kind of growth spurt have you enjoyed there in these last few years? Might there be room for what all you have cooked up for coming next, and by the way, will you ever run out?
Lauren Widenhofer: I think that's the question of the hour, right? [all chuckle] One notable feature that we've recently added is one of the city's few fully accessible bus stops.
So there's a shelter on our campus for city busses to pick up and drop clients. It's really made our services more accessible to the community.
And we just continue to look for more opportunities in how we can best provide transportation and things of that nature to our clients.
Julia Meek: Again, you folks are uncanny about thinking ahead at what will be an obstacle and removing that, and you could not do what you do without extraordinary staff and support from your board. How does that part of the magic work over there at Turnstone?
Rena Shown: We have a very engaged board of directors. In fact, our gala, our signature fundraising event, is actually called the Board of Directors Gala, and that's because they really do take ownership over that part of the responsibility of a board member in the financial resources area ensuring that we have adequate financial resources to run the organization.
So they've always been involved philanthropically, but more so they really do set the direction of where we intend to go for the next 5 to 10 years. I'm excited for that phase of strategic planning to be coming up in just the next couple months for us as an organization.
We just completed a strategic plan where we met most, if not all, of the metrics that we had set out for ourselves, and we're starting a new and so it's dream phase now you know, Julia, so we get to think big and see what all we might be able to have come about at Turnstone.
Julia Meek: We love your overactive dream imaginations too over there, so we will be really interested in what you are cooking up.
And meanwhile, this has been a hard year for all kinds of nonprofits, and funding is at a big all-time risk for a lot of organizations. How has it impacted what you do? Are you able to ride the wild storm?
Rena Shown: You know, at Turnstone, we've been fortunate enough to receive philanthropic donations over the years that have allowed us to be able to weather storms like this. But to say that it's easy would be an understatement.
We definitely had to make some decisions in this last budget that we prepared, having lost a million dollars from the state that we had procured in years previous.
So, we did make a lot of hard decisions, but we were able to pass a budget that allowed us to continue services at the level at which we do and maintain all the staff that we have to accomplish the goals that we set out for ourselves as an organization.
So yes, we're weathering the storm, but it's going to be a tough one to get through, I think, in these not just this year the next year as well.
Especially as our families are, you know, missing out on SNAP benefits and missing out on other funding opportunities through their Medicaid waivers and child care vouchers, which have all taken a hit this year.
Julia Meek: It's necessary for every organization to plan ahead, and yet it's impossible for organizations to plan ahead for everything, especially things like, from covid to the current state of financial affairs.
How do you keep your spirits going? How do you keep motivated? How do you keep everything going strong?
Lauren Widenhofer: We're really thankful for the community supporters who come along stride with us every step of the way.
They continue to hear the stories of turns clients that we're sharing with them, and they see the life-changing services that we're providing to them, and they see the importance and continue to support that.
Julia Meek: And so how does Turnstone's combined facilities and service and output, which is all pretty legit as we're discussing, how does that all compare to such organizations in other cities our size, doing the same thing?
Rena Shown: You know, Turnstone is one of a kind. We're often referred to as a hidden gem in this city. But more and more people are learning who we are, not only in the Fort Wayne community, but in the region and the nation as well.
We're looked to as the premier facility for a universally designed athletic field house, and that's something that we should be proud of.
We've been in the community for the last 10 years with the Plassman Athletic Center and the number of tours that we have given to cities and other entities that would like to have a facility like Turnstone is innumerable, right?
There is a lot of interest in the building that we have and the activities that we provide within the building, and how we're able to make it work.
That's the secret, is how Turnstone is able to make all of those things work together.
Julia Meek: Well, that might be the magic. [all laugh] Is there a way to bottle and sell that?
Rena Shown: Yes, I wish there was. We need to figure out a way to sell that magic potion.
Julia Meek: Indeed. And as regards the next chapters, in Turnstone's impressive game strategy, what might that, or they, knowing you overachievers, be?
Rena Shown: I think we're looking forward to hosting the next international competition that might come our way, leading into the LA '28 games.
There's going to be a lot of activity in the United States for different competitions and world-class events to be held, and Turnstone has quickly been making a name for itself as a great host site for those competitions.
So, I'm hoping that we have another international event in our immediate horizons.
Julia Meek: Could you guess what that might be?
Rena Shown: Um, maybe something in wheelchair basketball? Maybe? [all laugh]
Julia Meek: That sounds pretty promising.
Rena Shown: Yeah.
Julia Meek: And you do promise to keep us posted, then, right?
Rena Shown: I do.
Julia Meek: Thank you. And as regards the team responsible for Turnstone's personal record of extreme success, you wouldn't have to work so hard and care so much to make it a successful organization, but you do, and that makes it something incredibly special.
So last question, what's your secret? What drives you personally to this continued level of performance and passion for our entire community of every diversability?
Lauren Widenhofer: Yeah, knowing that I'm helping shape our community, region’s, nation’s outlook on disabilities is something that has been life changing for me the past eight years that I've spent with Turnstone.
It's something that keeps me there every day. It's something that makes me motivated to go to work in the morning. During the World Paravolley tournament, I worked over 200 hours in two weeks, and it was the biggest thrill of my life, you know?
And I knew that I was making a difference in every single athlete's life that was there.
Julia Meek: Thank you, Lauren and Rena?
Rena Shown: I think for me, it's my genuine love of people. The people who are helping make our services available to people with disabilities, but also the people with disabilities that we're serving.
They motivate me to do my job every day. What I see from them is them accomplishing their goals to continue living independently in their homes, and I'm just a bystander in that and helping make some connections with the people who want to see that happen as well.
You know, my job is to connect with the people who have the resources to make a difference in these lives of these individuals and make that happen. I take that very seriously, and it brings me a lot of joy to do.
Julia Meek: Rena Shown is Chief of Development and Strategic Partnerships and Lauren Widenhofer, Development Project Manager of the Turnstone Center. Thanks for sharing your story of this great organization, you two, keep up the great work. Go Turnstone.
Rena Shown: Thank you, Julia.
Lauren Widenhofer: Thank you.
