Richard Nuscher, Miracle Worker

For those of you who do not know me well, Richard Nuscher is my husband. But wait, a miracle worker? Let me explain.

When in 2013 we decided to make Grenada our permanent home, we spent several months trying to find meaningful, activities, preferably ones that could give back to this wonderful island that welcomed us. In Dick’s (Richard) case that turned out to be volunteering at the Dorothy Hopkin Centre for Disabled Youth. As he had worked at a high school for disabled youngsters in Chicago, this was a perfect fit.

The Hopkin Centre is a residential facility for disabled youth. The reality, though, is that as there are no residential facilities for the disabled, the residents stay as long as they need to. Funding, as for most government institutions, is minimal, so the activities for the residents are limited, relying on various volunteers who come to the Centre. These might be students from St. George’s University, artists, Peace Corps members. There is no ongoing program, so volunteers come and go.

Enter "Uncle Richie" as the residents dubbed Dick. He has been there 2 days a week, 4 hours each time and has devised an incredible variety of stimulating, challenging activities. My favorite being bowling. As the residents cannot go to Lavo Lanes, Uncle Richie made a bowling alley. He took plastic soft drink bottles, put stones in them, then poured some glue on the stones to weight them. Voila, bowling pins. A white heavy duty plastic sheet is the “alley”, and a variety of balls are used, depending on the ability of the person throwing. Score is kept (sort of) by a group member.

There’s also bingo, tic tac toe, dominoes, library day. For the latter, he goes to the Grenada Community Library to check out the simplest children’s books with as many pictures as possible. Most of the group cannot read but they love to handle the books and look at the pictures.

Did I mention homework? Since some of the residents do go to school, it occurred to Uncle Richie that the group might feel good if they, too, did homework. The assignments are given taking into consideration the limited abilities of the young people. It might be just coloring of matching shapes, but they all take this very seriously and proudly present their work to Uncle Richie.

​The miracle is that without specifically planning to, Dick has given these young people a sense of pride, independence, accomplishment, feelings they have not experienced before he began working with them. The feeling that he cares form them, treats each one as being special has changed the young people’s lives in a positive way.