Countywide : Disabled Awarded Prize for Logo of Recycling Program

A month’s labor of shredding paper, pasting and sculpting papier-mache has paid off for eight developmentally disabled adults at the Assn. for Retarded Citizens of Ventura County.

The group created a 24-inch-high papier-mache model of a hot-air balloon that recently won the grand prize in a statewide design contest for the logo of a Sacramento recycling program.

And the artists, who range in age from 22 to 50, have already decided what to do with their $250 in prize money, said Carolyn Whalen, director of the daytime activities program at the association.

They’ll “rent a bus to go to the county fair” in August, Whalen said. “They love to go to the county fair for the day.”

The association is a 38-year-old private, nonprofit agency that provides vocational training and jobs for adults disabled by Down’s syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome, autism or other afflictions, Whalen said.

Most of the more than 150 clients at the association get paid for doing work at the center, such as light assembly, for local businesses.

A smaller number of clients, including the artists who created the model balloon, are not yet able to work and instead take classes at the center in social skills, arts and crafts and other subjects to prepare them for doing the paid labor, Whalen said.

The art class instructor who entered the logo design contest chose to have the group do a papier-mache model rather than a drawing to allow more clients to participate in the project, Whalen said.

“If it’s just a drawing, only one person can work on it,” Whalen said. But papier-mache allows “everybody to take part in some small way, whether it’s just ripping up the paper or whatever.”

The class used mainly shredded newspaper and tiny, multicolored pieces of magazine paper for their model, in keeping with the contest’s requirement that all entries be made from recycled materials.

But Whalen admitted the hot-air balloon itself doesn’t have much to do with recycling.

The motto that the class attached to its entry, however, at least has personal significance for them.

The winning logo’s motto is: “Up, up and away--developmentally disabled can reach all heights.”