Hello! Jelica Nuccio here [PT Name Sign: fanning/pressing fingers on the chest or other area of the person you are talking to and then tucking closed fingers into a “pocket” on the chest, like you’re collecting rays of sunshine and tucking them in to keep]. Vince and I are very excited to finally be making this announcement. We did it! We actually moved to Monmouth, Oregon on September 11th, 2018. We love the Seattle DeafBlind community and we value our experience there more than we can express. Every single year of our 21 years there was full of powerful, incredible experiences. Vince and I both grew so much there. We moved to Monmouth because we wanted to know what it’s like to live in a small town and have a small PT community there. We also see a lot of potential here to collaborate with Western Oregon University and we were able to purchase a “PT House” here, which will allow us to do many exciting things with and for our community. Monmouth has two main streets—if you are thinking of a city—that is the wrong idea, smile. Monmouth is a tiny tiny town. We live in the center of it and from where we live, everything is within 5 blocks: small grocery store, the post office, the dog park, the medical clinic, the University campus, the library, coffee places, pizza places, busses, etc. We can walk a lot of places—you’re not always stuck riding busses, and this is really a great start for autonomy. Next, we are going to meet with the City of Monmouth to get accessible cross-walk signals, and other things that will make autonomy even more achievable and will be really great for TC students who come to stay here. Vince is also going to get his art business off the ground here in Monmouth. He has been working on acquiring a CNC machine - which can build complex things into tactile products. Imagine a tactile map of Oregon with the rivers, mountains, state borders, and some landmarks al embedded into one product.
The PT house itself is going to be a place where TC students, a CNC shop, and members of research teams can come for full immersion into a PT environment. The house has 4 bedrooms, a living room with an office space in it where meetings can be held. There is a dining room, which will be organized in a PT style, a kitchen, a bathroom, outside there is a large deck and a lot of space. So this is our new, TC facility.
We want to express our gratitude and love for the Seattle DeafBlind community, as well as our excitement about this new chapter. We are excited to meet new people, to explore new possibilities, and to see TC grow.
With hugs,
Jelica, Vince and two pups Cubby and Maxx