Joy Newsletter
June 2026
📣Congrats and thank you for another year with Seneca!📣
Jenna Kitzes 4 years
Grace Little 3 years
Bryan Hwang 1 year
6/1- Jenna Kitzes
6/7- Alexandra Hajek
6/11- Haley Huffaker
6/14- Melissa Morgan
6/15- Priscilla Kang-Rubesh
6/18- Clarissa Parnell
6/21- Luz Schiffer
6/29- Courtney Glenn
Gemini Season! May 21- June 20th
Geminis are always the life of the party. They’re charismatic and outgoing, making an excellent first impression. They can capture everyone’s attention with their witty banter and insightful comments. Geminis are also able to adapt to any social group, no matter how different. This is thanks to their mutable sign traits: They were born just as spring begins to change into summer, so transformation comes easily to them.
Cancer Season! June 21st- July 22nd
Cancers feel things very deeply. They have intense and sometimes even overpowering emotions. They’re extraordinarily empathetic and caring, always there with a shoulder to cry on. Their emotional intelligence and intuition are among the strongest in the zodiac; they can easily read body language, tweaks in tone of voice, and subtle changes in behavior. While these traits make them excellent friends, it can also emotionally exhaust them. It’s hard taking care of everyone!
🌟Spreading Joy with May Mattering 🌟
Thank you all who partipcated in Seneca Wa's May Mattering this year! Here is a summary of our MVPs and winners!
If you won- please reach out to JOY to claim your reward.
May Mattering MVPs
For bragging rights only, these are the Senecans who participated in May Mattering the most:
🏆#1 - Ashlee Gormley (13 self-care activities)
🏆#2 - Janice Seol, Katie Justus, Nic Huang-Melenciuc and Ryan Cormack (12 self-care activities)
🏆#3 - Anna Casey, Ellie Fuller and Victoria Eastman (11 self-care activities)
Participation Prizes- Email JOY@senecacenter.org
Self-Care Champion - $75 gift card
We had 5 participants submit a self-care activity at least 12 times during May: Ashlee, Janice, Katie, Nic and Ryan. The random drawing winner for Self-Care Champion is:
⭐Katie Justus
Consistency Counts Prize - $50 gift card
We had 11 participants play at least 8 times during May. The random drawing winner for Consistency Counts is:
⭐Ashlee Gormley
Everyone’s Got a Chance Prize - $25 gift card
We had 19 participants submit a self-care activities at least 4 times during May. The random drawing for Everyone's Got a Chance is:
⭐Ranette Iding
Some Fun Pictures to Share the JOY of May Mattering
Tesla K- I appreciate your flexibility in sharing treatment spaces at Atlas and your perspective and help with talking through OT Questions!- Sam SC
Aubray M. (Specialist Team), Thank you for being such a great thought partner, advocate for our scholars and team members and just an overall wonderful speech therapist and person! I don't know what I do without you as a colleague and friend!
-Liv
Devon (Happy SLP Month!)- Thank you for all that you do to lead and support our speech department/team. You lead with strength, humor, grace, wisdom and compassion. You strive to better our services and partnerships within our schools, which in turn makes our department pretty awesome! Thank you for all that you do as lead SLP, we appreciate you! -Aubray
Ellie F. (Specialist Team), I always appreciate collaborating with you and bouncing ideas off of you when I am brainstorming for a student. I wish we got to work together more often! - Katie J.
MRSS, it has been an absolute JOY to get to know and work with everyone on the team. Even though I don't come into the office often, I feel so welcomed when I do and my mood is always brightened. I look forward to our weekly meetings (specifically hearing about everyone's highs and lows and answers to our check in questions) and seeing everyone's lovely faces. I will miss you all :') -Ashlee
Liv: Just wanted to give you a shout out for jumping back into things so smoothly after returning from your leave! I know you have a lot of meetings/evals to do in these last few weeks so wishing you good energy! You got this!! -Janice S.
Aubray: Just wanted to give you a shout out and say thanks for planning the puppet making activity! It was fun to see how creative our scholars got with making their customized puppets and watching their silly puppet shows. I'm excited for our fruit party next! :) -Janice S.
Emily, Grace, and Tesla: Thank you all for your persistence in advocating for interventions and evaluations at BRE! The rollout of RTI/MTSS meetings has been so rocky, but I really appreciate your continued student-centered advocacy and willingness to discuss concerns with leads so we can all collaborate on a plan. --Anna Casey
Danielle B (Specialist, SLP)! As always, I’ve really enjoyed working with you this school year! All your co-tx ideas are so fun and you always take into account all the OT skills our students need as well! It is so clear that your students see you as an adult they can feel safe and regulated with. This year, you have also been such a light to our SSE team, being kind to all staff, no matter how difficult the situation. – Nic HM
Katie J (Specialist, SLP), working with you this year has been so fun and needed! Having your kind and patient attitude with our extra fun students have kept me going this year. I also have loved collaborating with you complex students and laughing/joking about the difficulties we have. It makes work so much more fun. I’m also ever grateful that you spearhead our fun monthly DISCO groups! Can’t wait to start our modelling group next year! – Nic HM
Kelsey B (Specialist, SLP)! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed co-tx with you the past few months! You are so creative and patient with our student. I’m also impressed with your observation skills regarding the environment and what is most conducive to his participation & learning! Sessions would be so much harder if I had to do it alone! – Nic HM
Ellie F (Specialist, SLP)! It’s been great working with you this year! Whether it’s at our DISCO days or when we see 1-2 students together, your kind patience and fun attitude have made sessions so fun and lighthearted. – Nic HM
Carolina M (Specialist, Psych), my school site buddy! I truly appreciate how much you advocate for our students, whether it’s to make sure that their FBA/BIPs are not ableist and carried out with fidelity, to trying to contact admin at the last minute to make sure we have our parent-meetings. You also bring so much joy to the days we are on-site together! I always look forward to seeing you at our schools. As the school-psych I see the most, I do have a question though, “What is adaptive?” – Nic HM
Nico A (Specialist, Psych), the fearless advocate of SSE! I appreciate all the work you have done with our school this year. It has been a systematically rocky year, but you held on, advocated for our students and our team, and are never afraid to say it like it is! I truly appreciate all the improvements you’ve implemented, but in your carefree and casual way! – Nic HM
Sam SC (Specialist, OT), it was so fun getting to work with you at SSE this year! It was hard to pass along a majority of my caseload to you, but your students clearly connect with you so much and are in such good hands. Our social groups have been so fun and I probably enjoy them as much as our students. It’s been so nice to be able to collab and do groups with another OT at this school after all these years, hope we can do more! – Nic HM
Nicole M (Specialist, OT)! I truly appreciate your guidance, advocacy, and fun this year (and all years really)! The end of the year was a whirlwind, but Mondays, despite being the hardest day, was always bearing b/c of the emotional support! Thank you for always encouraging me and pointing me in the right direction of how to serve our students. I always feel inspired to add more fun and excitement to tx planning when we co-tx! Don’t know what I would do without you!- Nic HM
Gini S (Specialist Team), thank you for leading our team again this school year! Despite our team getting bigger and bigger, we still function so well under your guidance! I also really enjoyed getting to be in the same transdisciplinary group for our meetings this year! - Nic HM
Kayla- I always love catching you in the office and chatting. Thank you for all the information you passed along around transitioned clients. - Victoria
Mia T (OPS) Thank you for all your PA guidance and also letting me yap to you at the front desk - Michael J
Sam B (KC WISe) I appreciate how you are always willing to go above and beyond to support everyone! - Michael J
Daniel- thanks for being open to consults and my venting in supervision. I appreciate you! Victoria
Travis - I love our sense of humor - Victoria
Jenna
Thank you so much for willingness to support colleagues. Really appreciate you supporting new staff coming in the team and welcoming them with open arms. Your hospitality and kindness is always appreciated! - Daniel
Kira-
Welcome to the team! So excited to have you with us and appreciate how you have already jumped in and integrated yourself as a part of the team. Appreciate you!- Daniel
Michael Speech Dept: Thank you for being such amazing co-workers! You inspire me daily on how you show up for kids! Your imaginative ideas on how to make sessions fun are impactful for your students and I bet some of them will remember your fun sessions forever! I love working here because I get to work alongside you all and I appreciate every one of you! - Devon Gini- Thank you for holding down so much, this year especially. You get work done and figure out how to fix problems in a meaningful and concise way. I see you taking feedback and adjusting things to always try to make things better for us all while taking into account others feelings and thoughts. You are a delight and Seneca (and us) are very lucky to have you as our team. I hope you have a bit of time this summer to relax and spend time with your family:) - Devon ( respect)
Thanks for supporting us with some last minute transportation request! Appreciate you!- Daniel
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Be sure you've completed the Likes and Loves survey, as this is where we pull birthday and Senecaversary information from. Please let us know if we missed your birthday or Senecaversary by emailing us at joy@senecacenter.org.
Don't forget to add the program of the person you are appreciating in so we can be highlighting all the great work done across the agency and the diversity of programs in Seneca WA!
Our Joy Newsletter will be continuing this summer! Be sure to tune into the next letter to get some ideas for fun community outings this summer:)
🌭If you've made it this far, CONGRATULATIONS! We hope you feel the love from your colleagues. To enter to win a 25$ gift card of your choice, fill out the Raffle Entry Form with your answer to this:
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