2019 Success Chrysalis Celebration

By Alysha Clark

While walking into the Goodman Center for our Annual Success Celebration, I would have never dreamed of the participation and inspiration that came out of it.  Each year, Chrysalis hosts a Celebration of Success to recognize the successes of the Consumers, Staff, and Chrysalis. We also have staff available to serve delicious food, this year catered by Chipotle. 

There was time to socialize with consumers, agency partners, staff, board members, parents, and friends.  We then started the speeches. Executive Director Dani Rischall started by talking to us about different program successes.

Then Vocational Peer Specialist Matthew Strickland took the mic and invited people to share their successes in 2019.  We had several people share- from “developing leadership skills” to “working for 10 months”. We had parents share about “what Chrysalis had done for their child” and agency partners share about Chrysalis services being “night and day” change in the consumer’s lives.  It was an extremely inspirational moment, that we will all remember.

We then moved on to the awards.  This year, IPS Supervisor Amy Yonker presented the Employer of the Year award to Madison Marriot West for their dedication supporting an individual doing banquet set up and their great communication with Chrysalis.

The second award was presented by Employment Specialist Furman Avery to David Gober for the Chrysalis Achievement Award.  David Gober gave an inspirational speech talking about how work has helped him in his recovery and reminding us all that the work is never over- especially for David who will continue to work towards his dreams.

To finish the celebration, we showed off the beautiful collaborative art that we created.  Each butterfly has a written success by someone in the room that day. Now we have a piece of that inspirational day to remind us of all the successes in our welcome area.