“I’ve been coming to San Antonio Clubhouse for nine months. Before I started at Clubhouse, I was not
getting the support I needed from my family. I had few friends. My psychiatrist suggested I come here,
but I was afraid to show up. I thought Clubhouse was solely focused on job training, I thought it was just
a training program for work, and that’s it. I wasn’t looking for that. Still, after a while, I came for a tour.
That’s when I realized Clubhouse was a place where I could fit in, I knew that day.
I definitely see changes in myself since being here as part of the community…
“I enjoy working in all of the units, and I enjoy all the different tasks. But I love helping out in the kitchen.
It will always be my favorite unit because that is where I worked when I was first was here at Clubhouse.
I also really enjoy working in Health and Wellness making the salads we offer for lunch. Now I do tasks
in all the units. Sometimes I get distracted, I have racing thoughts at times, but I always try to focus on
what I am doing to get the task at hand done.
“I definitely see changes in myself since being here as part of the community. At first, in meetings I
pretty much stayed quiet and now I am able to talk in meetings, and lead meetings. We have something
really exciting going on in Health and Wellness and for all of the community. We had all been talking a
lot about how we might encourage members to live healthy lifestyles. My case manager has often told
me to try and channel my racing thoughts into productive things. I began thinking about how to
promote health and wellness and came up with a fitness workout. I even spent weekends thinking
about it, and nights. I came up with the exercises, the rules, the things we might need to put it into
action. And I led the meetings with other members and staff about my ideas for this fitness program.
“Right now, we are calling it the Role the Dice Workout. We will be on TikTok with our workouts and we
are inviting other Texas clubhouses to join us in working out. We are promoting Health and Wellness in
a fun and exciting way. I am really looking forward to it and I have more ideas about additional things
we can add into it all as it progresses.
“I also really enjoying making donations of different kinds to the community, like things for the birthday
celebrations and other socials. It makes me feel good to do that. I like seeing the smiles on peoples’
faces when they realize someone has donated something. I know a lot of members have less than I
have, so I want to donate things. I really enjoy Clubhouse. I consider everyone here as family.”