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Photo courtesy of Kerry Lynn. Arc consumer Sara Flynn stands with Arc Skills Trainer Patty Dame before receiving the Eddie Mooney Award on Thursday evening at the 25th annual Arc awards event. -
Photo courtesy of Kerry Lynn. Arc consumer Frank Koehler smiles Thursday night with his award for employee excellence from local business man and Arc of Putnam County Board President Breck Sloan on Thursday evening during the Eddie Mooney Awards Ceremony.
The 25th Eddie Mooney Awards brought some to tears but many more smiles as clients and supporters of the Arc of Putnam County were celebrated Thursday night.
More than 200 people attended the Arc’s annual ceremony in Palatka to raise money for Arc clients, Programs Coordinator Kerry Lynn said.
Since 1974, Arc has served people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, according to the agency’s website. The awards night is the Arc’s biggest event of the year and a great way to bring people together, Lynn added.
“It’s just incredible to be a part of and I still get chills,” Lynn said. “It was a beautiful night.”
Recognizing people in the community who may have disabilities is rewarding, she said, and the ceremony was great for people to notice things Arc consumers are doing.
Dwayne Herring, who won the Arc’s Community Contributions Award, cried tears of joy because he had no idea he was going to win that award Thursday, Lynn said.
The other award recipients were Frank Koehler, who won the Employment Excellence Award and Lillian Ellick who won the Peter-Prater Self Advocacy Award.
Business owner Andrea Conover also took home an award, winning the Lucille Flint Award. She received the award because Azalea Brewing Co. employees gave the Arc their spent grain from the brewery to make dog treats, Lynn said.
Suzann Costa – the CEO of bArc bites (sic) who receives the grant that finds the supplies and wages given to Arc constituents who make treats from the grain – presented the award to Conover. The dog treats are sold not only in the brewery, but many pet stores, according to Lynn.
Arc client Sara Flynn received the final and highest award: the 2022 Eddie Mooney Award. In September, Flynn graduated from the Arc’s Project SEARCH program, which works with adults with disabilities and trains them to be hired for jobs. In Palatka, Beck Automotive Group onboarded eight Arc consumers as interns for nine months.
“She was like a rock star,” Lynn said about Flynn’s activities in Project SEARCH. “She rocked all of her internships.”
With the help of Arc Skills trainer Patty Dame, Flynn kept applying to numerous jobs after her internships. She received many rejection letters, Dame said in a speech Thursday night, but noted Flynn never gave up.
In December, Publix employees asked Flynn to come in for an interview, and she was hired before she left the store that day, Dame said.
“She is doing amazing work as a bagger, and in her short time at Publix, she has already received a Thank You for Being a Difference-Maker Award,” Dame told ceremony attendees. “All of her hard work and persistence has paid off.”