Tuesday Group. “It’s Perfect.”
On many Tuesdays at Deaf & Hard of Hearing Services (D&HHS), a small group of folks will be gathered around the tables in the conference room, speaking American Sign Language while enjoying time together and perhaps working on a project or a puzzle that group organizer Deb Buckley has put together.
Known simply as Tuesday Group, the gathering has been taking place since 2007. Buckley, a retired teacher who worked for Grand Rapids Public Schools for three decades, including at Ottawa Hills High School, says the group fills an important role in the lives of those who attend.
“Every Tuesday when they come in,” she says, “they light up. Smiles on their face. It brings me joy seeing them enjoying their activities and outings.”
For D&HHS executive director Deb Atwood seeing the group come together once a week for the past dozen years or so is also a joy.
“It is important,” she says, “because in West Michigan there are not many places that our Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing community can come together and not rely on interpreters, family members or others to facilitate their communication. They chat, share stories, discuss politics, kids, pets, their favorite teams, whatever hearing people discuss but using their first language, ASL.”
Atwood says D&HHS headquarters on 44th Street in Kentwood, and before that on Kalamazoo Avenue in Kentwood, has become a safe zone, a place the group can call a second home, and she loves that that is true. She also loves the ways in which the group has over the years grown and evolved, learned their rights, she says, not only as citizens but as Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing people under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
She downplays the role of D&HHS but does believe that the organization has given group members a place to “spread their wings and find their inner hero.”
Group members agree. When Buckely asked them recently what they like about their Tuesday time together, the answers were uniformly positive.
“I like to paint,” said one longtime attendee. Another mentioned playing games and going out to lunch. And a third said simply: “Bowling,” a comment which others around the table that day affirmed with enthusiasm.
One person’s summation spoke for the entire gathering. “It’s a fun group every day,” he said. “It’s perfect.”
