Assisted living seniors, special-needs youth team up for outdoor education

Until recently, the Sunrise Lake outdoor education program consisted only of students from the Northwest Suburban Special Education Organization.

Late last year, some residents in a nearby assisted living center, Victory Centre in Bartlett, asked if they could participate in the program. Soon, a new cooperative was born.

Now, every Thursday, a small group of Victory seniors goes over to the 11-acre Sunrise Lake natural area in Bartlett and joins special-needs students from Kirk School in Palatine, doing everything from seasonal arts and crafts to rowing boats on the small lake.

"(One of the seniors) even went sledding with the kids," said John Guarrine, an outdoor education specialist with the Sunrise Lake OEC. "The (Victory residents) are great. They come out and they're energetic. Some of them have experience working with kids with special needs, or working with kids earlier in their lives. You see a twinkle in their eye and you can see that they're excited to be doing this again."

The NSSEO, which encompasses high school districts 214, 211 and six elementary districts, owns the Sunrise Lake property. It's an old abandoned camp site on the border of DuPage and Cook counties, which the've cleaned up and made handicap accessible.

The state sold the land to the NSSEO for $1 in the 1970s to be used as a natural area for special-needs and handicapped students. Maryville Academy's Eisenberg campus is on the other side of the parcel's small lake, Lost Island Lake.

The terms of the sale are that, if NSSEO no longer plans to use the property, it must sell it back to the state for $1 - no handing it over to developers for millions of dollars, Guarrine said.

Knowing what positive educational experience it is for the students - and now, for the seniors, too, - the Sunrise Lake property isn't going on the market anytime soon.

"The seniors get to know the kids, and vice versa," Guarrine said. "It's been a great match."