Opportunity Village clients are thankful for their blessings

Friday, Nov. 29, 2002 | 3:41 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Nov. 30, 2002

Alonzo Allred gets up every work day at 3:40 a.m. to shave, get dressed and look his very best.

His job at Opportunity Village, a 48-year-old nonprofit organization that trains the intellectually disabled, does not begin until 8 a.m., but Allred needs every bit of the time because of his physical and mental disabilities.

Retarded since age 3, when he fell head-first off a fire escape three stories to a concrete patio, Allred, who turned 43 last week, takes great pride in the fact that he gets ready for work on his own without waking his parents.

Blind in his right eye and paralyzed on his left side, he struggles out of bed into his wheelchair and painstakingly prepares for work while listening either to motivational discs or country-western music from his large CD collection.

Despite the hand that life has dealt him, Allred plays it like it's all aces. In these tough and troubled times, when many people feel they have little or nothing to be thankful for, Allred says he's thankful for a lot of things.

"I give thanks to God for all my many blessings," he said, struggling to clearly pronounce each syllable of every word. "I love and appreciate my family. I love and appreciate my church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and I love my job -- it's easy work."

For a man with such limited use of his body, it is not easy work. Allred, who is paid by the piece, opens tiny plastic bags and inserts packs of sugar, sugar substitute, creamer and coffee stir sticks.

He works four days a week at the facility alongside about 200 intellectually challenged people -- some worse off than him, some a little more functional.

Allred says on his days off from work, he gets to sleep in until "20 to 6" in the morning -- still rising a full 20 minutes before his folks.

Allred said Thanksgiving to him is a special time when he joins his mother, father and two sisters at the dining room table for a feast -- a vision out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

And while he is content with his lot in life, Allred looks forward to a very special day when he will be free of his earthly constraints.

"One day, I will go to heaven and be made whole," said Allred, who appears better adjusted in his world than many so-called normal people are in theirs. "I will walk and swim and do anything I want to. And I will be a guardian angel of mercy."

His courage and sunny disposition does not go unnoticed in the workplace.

"Alonzo just lifts everyone's spirit around here with his positive outlook on life," said Linda Smith, director of development for Opportunity Village.

"A quarter of the people who come here were born without disabilities but later suffered a disability, illness or injury," she said.

Rosalee Shoemaker, who turned 37 last week, also is a client of Opportunity Village. She lives in a group home with three other women -- Marcie Larson, Jennifer Husk and Beth Cook -- all of whom work at the facility.

"They are my family, too, and I love to be with my family on Thanksgiving," Shoemaker said, noting that she also would spend time this weekend with relatives at her brother's house.

Shoemaker says she loves this time of year because she gets to play "a jingle elf" in the Magical Forest on the Opportunity Village campus. But, she admits, she's bucking for a better job: "Sure, I'd love to play Mrs. Claus."

Shoemaker, interviewed days before her birthday, said she hoped this year would be a special one for which she would be thankful.

"My boyfriend is getting me a gift," she said. "An engagement ring, I hope."