Rheanne – Volunteer Spotlight

Rheanne Lewis, aka Rae, a licensed Speech Language Pathologist, has jumped right in to help us out with Speech and Social Skills programming, virtually, for GiGi’s Playhouse Twin Cities, during this time of Covid-19. She immediately started by creating a video geared towards our early learners, that focused on greetings and farewells, as well as a handout to help families. To date that video, is among one of our most popular videos since we’ve been supporting our families from GiGi’s Playhouse Twin Cities virtually. Everyone loved seeing her, as well as being connected to her through her video.

Next, she immediately reached out to Katlyn Aubitz, an established author, and self-advocate in our community. Rae worked with Katlyn and her family to get a video of Katlyn reading a book that she’s written, as well as putting together a handout that families can use with this reading as a resource – plus an introduction by Rae included in the video.

Now that Katlyn has posted one video for us, which she loved, she has worked with her family and Rae to create a number of other videos and resources to help our community, based on her books she’s written – plus a brand new one fresh off the press during her time of being quarantined. Katlyn’s mom, Ann, has now also been motivated to create some art and/or art history videos to help our community, & we now are reaching out to many of our self-advocates and families to create additional videos to help our community. This has inspired many of our volunteers to start working on creating videos too.

Rae has not only been a beacon of light at our GiGi’s Playhouse Twin Cities to inspire participants, families, and volunteers when we were offering in-person programming, but she has also continued to keep inspiring all of us during this time of virtual programming and social distancing. With Rae’s leadership, we have all felt closer than ever, and touched by her dedication.

This Saturday at 3:30pm CDT, Rae is finally being recognized internationally for all her efforts for our GiGi’s community locally. She will be leading a Social Skills program live virtually, internationally, to help all 48 playhouses’ communities in our network.

Thank you Rae, for being our beacon of light for our GiGi’s Playhouse Twin Cities community, and beyond! Rae truly deserves to be featured in this month’s Volunteer Spotlight, and beyond.

Rae and Katlyn’s videos can be found on our YouTube channel here — click on uploads to see all of them: https://www.youtube.com/user/GiGisPlayhouseTC

Resources, along with their videos can be found here: https://gigisplayhouse.org/twincities/uncategorized/gigis-at-home

GiGi’s At Home National Calendar, and to participate in programs go here: https://gigisplayhouse.org/gigisathome/calendar/