News, Happenings, Support....

Coming in July, a very special Virtual Roadtrip - Summer enrichment continues with noted local musician T.J. Wheeler, who will utilize music, storytelling and song to educate members about the various musical genres from areas visited on a virtual "Road Trip to the South."  From July 14 - August 11, the program will intertwine with SteppingStones regular scheduled groups including music, computer skills, travel group and cooking group and is funded in part by a grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts and the Eric Johnson Memorial Fund.

Our Community, Your Vote Award - We would like to thank The Provident Bank and the voters in our community for this award. We truly appreciate the votes in support of our programs.

Welcome UNH OT and CSD summer interns - Thanks to Amanda, Melissa, Amanda, Lisa, Mary, Sarah, Kristin, Chelsi, Lori and OT volunteer Jennifer. It wouldn't be a summer at SteppingStones without you!

Art, music, history, travel and more - Our Summer Enrichment program is off to a great start. The musical guests have included Grammy award winning guitarist Ed Gerhard, top-40’s performer Jody Gourlay, cellist Kristen Miller, guitarist Stephen Braciotti, and the Salt River Band.

Above left, the popular Salt River Band. Above right, Ed Sargent gets some hands-on instruction from

guitarist Ed Gerhard.

Painter Dean Diggins and fabric artist Nancy Morgan (shown below) both challenged our members never to look at a picture the same way again.

David and Jo Lynne Johnson took us to Southeast Asia with their stories and slideshow and Bob Miller showed us Mali from his viewpoint as a Peace Corp voluntee and John Rackley demonstrated his all-terrain wheelchairs to SteppingStones members. Next, lighthouse historian Jeremy d’Entremont took us on a virtual tour of New England lighthouses, Attorney Matt Cox talked about legal and financial issues for people with special needs, and Terry Schoppmeyer talked to us about healthy eating and shopping.

Spring Road Race/Health Walk 

With a sold out crowd, beautiful skies and throngs of volunteers, the 5K race was a festival of sights and sounds at the Redhook Brewery on Sunday, May 25th.

Read complete coverage of race day and view the photo gallery, by Dan Doyon of the Portsmouth Herald. 

Thank you to Runner's Alley for coordinating this event and to all the volunteers and staff who worked tirelessly before, during and after. We couldn't do it without you!

Congratulations to the UNH OT Graduates, Class of 2008 - Great job and thank you for your generous parting donation!

Children Visit SteppingStones - On Friday, May 16th, four Fifth Graders from the Mary C Dondero School in Portsmouth, NH visited SteppingStones and received a "powerful learning experience". According to their teacher, Jennifer Dunham, these four boys are often disengaged with learning, but came away from this experience actively brainstorming ways to help. We thank them for visiting and can't wait for the results of their brainstorming.

SteppingStones members honor Gene Paltrineri - Monday, May 5th

Gene Paltrineri arrived to volunteer at SteppingStones and was greeted with a small award ceremeony to start the day. Congratulations Gene for winning the Spirit Of The Seacoast award and thanks for volunteering!

Visit with Governor Lynch - NH Governor John Lynch visited with SteppingStones members on April 16th and learned first hand about our program and the lives of people living with brain injury. Read a great article about the event - 'SteppingStones a lesson in compassion for governor', by Gretyl Macalaster of Foster's Daily Democrat.

As we progress in 2008, we would like to extend our appreciation to the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation for their support of the foundation through the community impact grant initiative.