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Walter Gloshinski's Dream
My name is Walter Gloshinski, and I am a Special Day Class teacher at Santa Rosa Middle School. I am writing to you to inform you about my dream, and latest adventure for the Mentally Retarded citizens of our city, Santa Rosa. First let me tell you about the dream. I have developed an award winning educational program that has turned my classroom into a bagel, pie, muffin, and cookie business, which serves the staff and students at SRMS, and dozens of businesses downtown. This program teaches functional academics, vocational skills, social skills, independent living skills, and life skills, in real life settings. These past six years have been a wonderful learning experience that has prepared me for this next step in my life. The population I work with, the Mentally Retarded, has a 97% full time unemployment rate as adults. This shocking fact has inspired me to create an environment that will allow them to live and work in a safe, and meaningful setting, for life. My dream is to open several businesses, all of which will employ my former students. This will be a private venture, and eventually will include supervised, independent, individual housing, for all employees. My experience with running our bakery business at Santa Rosa Middle School has convinced me that the public is strongly supportive of this concept. The downtown community has embraced our program, with product demand far exceeding our current capabilities. This, coupled with such a caring and loving attitude that all show towards my students, is signaling me that the time has arrived for this dream to become a reality. The bakery will be located in downtown Santa Rosa and will not be run for profit. Employees will be paid a livable wage and any additional profits will go directly towards increasing their physical, social, and emotional comforts. It will serve as focal point for all members of our community to meet and socialize in a unique environment that will stress relationships, not profits. It will also serve as a place of focus, support, and hope, for all that have Mentally Retarded people in their lives. The program will work close with all Special Day classes from K-12 in the city, as well as agencies that serve this population. This program will be a crown jewel for the city of Santa Rosa, showcasing its unique and benevolent character. I have two other special education teachers that have expressed interest in this idea as well. One would like to train interested employees for work in the trades. This will be accomplished initially through maintaining the bakery, and later, once we get it, maintaining the housing track. When they are ready, they will then be placed in paying jobs with local contractors. The other teacher wants to open a bike repair shop. She already does this at her school site that serves special education students that are unsuccessful on regular campuses. She also would like to run a free bike program similar to the one in Seattle - bikes painted one color and set out throughout town for free public use. This would be our second building. The third building will be an authentic Texas BBQ. I learned this from my years of living in Texas, and playing music in Texas BBQ's. The plan is to have all three buildings together, and housing within a walkable distance to the shops. This will serve as a lifelong academy for these people, and hopefully will be replicated throughout the USA. This population is an untapped resource that is costing our society billions of dollars a year. This is a humble beginning to change the current scenario. I was a professional musician of some renown for 18 years, going under the stage name Walter Tore, and Walter H.K. Tore (harmonica king). My latest adventure has been learning how to make my own cd's at home. These recordings were made on a $200 digital recorder, and then burned on my home pc. All my music is done spontaneously, one take (words and music made up on the spot), and the mix consisted of adding only reverb. I am not doing this to make any money for myself, but I am using this avenue as one, of many, to get my dream out to the world. All profits from the cd will go toward this goal. I spent about $600 to put the studio together. Once I pay this off, all profits will go towards creating this program - less the cost to maintain the website and materials. I realize this will not produce much money, but it will help get the word out, and will serve as a worldwide site for the program. To keep costs down, the cd's will come without cases. I need all the help I can get on this one, from prayers, to things, to money, to emotional support, and things I don't even know right now. Enjoy the music and give me any feedback you might have. Donations
Accepted I look forward to hearing from you all. I was going to wait until I have all the proper "pieces" in place before I sent this out, but, as my friends know, that just isn't my style. - Walter
"You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world." - Nelson Mandela,
1994 Inaugural Speech
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