RESIDENTIAL CARE CENTER CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY.

Byline: Joan Hart

Hamilton House, a residential facility for the developmentally disabled, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and manager Janice Peterson attributed the home's success to special feelings of love felt among volunteers and residents.

"In capital letters, we're a family in every sense of the word. We support each other in times of crisis and we accept each other's idiosyncrasies," said Peterson, who has been managing the Hamilton House since it opened.

"We're all good friends," said Robin Triplett of Eagle Rock, one of the four regular volunteers at Hamilton House. She has been taking the residents of Hamilton House out to dinner once a week since its inception 10 years ago and said she has missed their dinner dates only once or twice a year.

"The residents of Hamilton House are good, lifelong friends. I am so lucky to have them as friends. I've learned from them that friends are what life is all about, said Triplett.

In the past few years, Triplett's life has become very hectic. The 41-year-old wife and mother works full time for the city of Burbank and attends college, working toward a degree in business administration.

But she always finds time to dine with her friends at Hamilton House.

"They're what's gotten me through college," she said.

"Statements like, 'Robin, you're so wonderful, I love you,' reminds me of what's really important in life," Triplett said.

When they go out to eat, she said, they talk about everything.

"They pick the restaurant. And if it's someone's birthday we do a toast and give speeches. It's like the Academy Awards," she said.

Other volunteers help make Hamilton House a home, including Hal Weber, 60, of Glendale, who has been volunteering his time for the past three years.

This retired Lockheed flight engineer takes some at the facility to Boy Scout meetings.

Another volunteer, Gary Rubin, 35, of West Los Angeles is a national marketing director for a broadcasting and cable magazine who donates as much time as he can at the house making snacks and baking.

And then there is Christy Romano, 26, of San Fernando, who works for Disney Studios in Burbank. She volunteers her Saturdays by taking the group to Special Olympic practices such as basketball.

"Our goal is integration, mainstreaming and normalization. And with the help from our volunteers, this has become possible," said Peterson.

The main goal of Hamilton House is to help the residents become as independent as possible. And according to Peterson all the loving attention given to the residents by the volunteers has made this possible.

Hamilton House, located at 739 West Glenoaks Ave. in Glendale, is a nonprofit organization, partially funded by the state. It also relies on donations and fund raising. Another facility in Glendale called Alma House is similarly operated and managed by Peterson's husband. A third facility, the Self-Aid Workshop, provides residents of both homes with career training and employment.

And Peterson's daughter, Paula, is the full-time assistant manager of both homes.

Residents come to Hamilton House when their parents pass away or are not well enough to help them.

"We provide a safety net. They are all at different levels of functioning. Some are good at social skills and can't read or write and vice versa," Peterson said.

The Self-Aid Workshop relies on contract jobs from local businesses. Most of the residents do such work as hole punching, mailing and packaging. And five of the nine residents, in addition to working at the Self-Aid Workshop, work part time at the Best Way Recycling Center in Glendale. Also, one of the women works part time at the Warner Bros. store in the Glendale Galleria.

They work with conveyor belts sorting plastic, glass and aluminum.

"It's a hard job," Peterson said.

She said they are paid by piece rate at the workshop. They get paid minimum wage and sometimes above minimum wage when working at outside businesses.

At Hamilton House they all help out doing the cooking, cleaning and everyday chores.

Janice Peterson resides there during the week and goes home only on weekends.

Two women residents, Tracey Holzer, 32, and Roxanne Fitzgerald, 37, refer to each other as best friends.

They have been living together there since 1985 and do just about everything with each other. They go to work, dinner, shopping and movies together. They make their own plans and go off on their own, Peterson said.

"I like her. She's a very good roommate to be with," Fitzgerald said.

"She's my best friend," Holzer said of Fitzgerald.

Holzer and Peter Owens, another resident, made a special announcement recently.

"We're engaged. He gave me a ring," Holzer said.

The couple haven't set the date, but Holzer said she plans on still living there when they marry.

The couple met each other at Hamilton House and fell in love.

"We went on an expensive trip to Hawaii awhile ago," Owens said.

They are all such good friends that Holzer, Owens and Fitzgerald have taken yoga, speech and acting classes together.

And they all double date, too.