Nearly every business and organization have been affected by COVID-19 in different ways, but many are back to some semblance of normalcy now.
The staff and employees at Ascend Services in Manitowoc for one are very happy to be back.
We spoke with Deanna Genske, the Executive Director of the organization, who said “We are in a great place now. All of our clients have come back. We’ve had new referrals. Our initiative going into the year was ‘Let’s build capacity,’ and I think we far superseded…what I was expecting us to be at with numbers. We are serving more people now than we did before COVID.”
Plus, the people that have come back are bringing with them a new level of appreciation for what Ascend Services means to them.
“Everybody is energetic right now, staff included,” Genske said. “Our mission has been really focused on helping people, both staff and our clients, find out what their passion is.”
This has lit a new fire under some of the workers as they try some new things they maybe hadn’t considered before.
These changes have really helped many of the workers grow.
“It’s been fun to see then step outside of that comfort zone and that box, and that they have embraced it,” Genske said. “Then to hear parents come back ands say ‘Wow. Thank you.’”
We will hear from two of these workers over the next couple of days.
Both Britney Randal and Travis Boetcher have been with Ascend for many years and were more than happy to tell us about what they do on a daily basis.
