WS Chronicle

W.R. Anderson Community Center director Bryant McCorkle has always welcomed the community to use the facilities the center has to offer.  He recently partnered with a couple of organizations that assist mentally disabled adults, allowing them to play volleyball at the center to enhance the socialization skills of these individuals.

Last Wednesday marked the second week that the center has been hosted the volleyball games.  Friendly People That Care and The Center for Creative Opportunities are the first two organizations involved in the soon-to-grow league. Friendly People That Care is a group home provider service that has seven group homes around the area that assist mentally disabled adults.  The service focuses on enhancing the life skills of their clients along with providing them with multiple activities to bolster their socialization skills.

Larry Curry, owner of Friendly People That Care, says that McCorkle has been extremely helpful to him and his organization.  He says the organization was the result of his wife Angela’s passion for helping others.

“When we came up with the idea to incorporate this volleyball league for the mentally disabled, we reached out to Bryant and he was happy to help us out,” said Curry.  “We are going to try and do this for the next two months.  We have reached out to other organizations and they have been responding so we will be playing other teams every Wednesday.”

“We are just trying to get them involved with something fun out in the community,” he continued.  “I think being involved and interacting is the thing they get out of this the most.  They are excited about the game, and that makes me feel good.”

Darell Anderson Jr. of The Center for Creative Opportunities says they have been working with Friendly People That Care for quite some time.  He says they were thrilled to have their clients come and participate in the volleyball league.

“This is something that the Friendly People That Care have been doing and we are just getting started and it allows us to come out in the community to have a good time,” he said.  “It helps to build relationships and skill building for the clients.”

“The guys are very excited and they take this seriously, so we try to take this serious as well,” Anderson continued.  “We treat this as if we were playing a real game.  I just enjoy working with people and making them smile.  At the end of the day, if it makes them happy then it makes me happy, and I will be blessed for helping them.”

McCorkle says he was more than happy to accommodate the organizations that wanted to start a league at the center.  He thought this would be a great opportunity for the clients to get out and have some fun while also meeting new people. McCorkle says his center would love to have as many organizations join the league as possible.  He encourages any organization that assist the mentally disabled that is interested in joining to call the W.R. Anderson Community Center at 336-650-7684 for more information.