Food tastes better when you buy it and cook it yourself. A job
done thoroughly and conscientiously is a job well done. Exercising
the body and spirit has its own rewards.
These may all be well-known facts, but for the 18 to 22-year-olds
in the F.A.C.T.S program, or Foothill Area Community Transition
Services, these ideals are the building blocks to becoming
self-sufficient young adults.
The requirements for participating in this program is that the
students be between the ages of 18 and 22, be regional center
qualified, to not have graduated from high school and to have
attended school in the Glendale or La Canada Unified School
Districts.
The program also works closely with the Department of
Rehabilitation and the Regional Center to make the transition.
And for the 47 young people that participate in this program
housed at the United Methodist Educational Building in Glendale,
learning to shop and cook, as well as taking classes in golf, tennis,
weight training, walking and running and dance, give them something
to look forward to now and in the future.
"I give these kids a lot of credit, because they don't complain
and they come in every day and do a good job,'' said Tim Maiorca, who
teaches one of the three classes in the program.
"They want to learn and that gives anybody a head start in the
learning process, but for these young people, when they do something
on their own and do it right, they have taken another step in
becoming functioning adults.''
Emin Hakoopian, an 18-year-old from Glendale, said he loves the
golf classes he takes at Glendale Community College as well as
"pumping iron'' at the YMCA and said that the skills he is learning
in the F.A.C.T.S. program will help him in the future.
"I am learning how to shop and cook for myself and I can work a
little and maybe make some money,'' Hakoopian said. "This is a good
thing for me and I like my teacher Tim because he helps me and we
have fun doing stuff every day.''
*
Thanksgiving came early for the students in Maiorca's class
Monday, when his students bought food at the Ralphs Market in
Glendale and prepared their own turkey dinner, which they eat
heartily and proudly.
Things like cooking and shopping are things most of us take for
granted, just another skill that we gain that helps get through every
day.
But through the F.A.C.T.S. program, the students are trained to
learn vocational and social skills in order to get jobs and be able
to interact with people as well as domestic skills like house
