ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
For many government entities, July 1 marks the beginning of a new fiscal year. For Mosaic, the day marks the agency’s founding with the consolidation of Bethphage and Martin Luther Homes in 2003.
Since 2020, the day has been celebrated as One Mosaic Day, and with several other organizations becoming part of Mosaic since that time, the celebration is now bigger than an anniversary.
The day, Mosaic President and CEO Linda Timmons said, is a celebration of a network comprising 12 states, 750 communities and a workforce of nearly 5,000 people all working together with a common purpose.
“We are called to serve and love,” she said.
Locally, Mosaic in Southwest Kansas marked the day with a cookout featuring hamburgers, hot dogs and pork burgers donated by National Beef and Seaboard Foods, along with some games at Liberal’s Blue Bonnet Park.
Mosaic works with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and the early July celebration also included a photo booth and a DJ, as well as an egg race between Liberal police officers and firefighters and Mosaic staff and clients and firefighters spraying guests with water to cool off from the hot day.
Mosaic in Southwest Kansas Senior Community Relations Manager Vickie Harshbarger said the agency has a rich history of caring for people in addition to being concerned about them.
“They both started out with that individual person in mind to show utter respect,” she said of Bethphage and Martin Luther Homes.
A favorite story for Harshbarger comes from Bethphage’s former campus in Axtell, Neb., during its founding days in the early 20th century.
“There was a lady there who was bedridden,” she said. “She couldn’t get up and get dressed every day, but when visitors came, every morning, they would lay a dress for her blanket so that when the visitors came to visit, they would say, ‘Please tell Mary how beautiful she looks today.’ When they would open the door, the first thing they focused on was the beautiful dress and not her condition. What we’re all about is to see the person for who they are, not their disability.”
Harshbarger said the support Mosaic gives is very vital because of the stigmas surrounding people with disabilities such as not being to have a job or not caring what they do during the day.
“That is totally false,” she said. “We have found with our Mosaic at Home program, the more people are included in the community, the more things they discover and enjoy doing.”
Harshbarger said Mosaic’s day programs currently focus primarily around being out in the community and experiencing new things.
“We’ve gone to the museum up in Hays,” she said. “We’ve gone to local museums in smaller communities. We enjoy the lake during the summer for sure. We have a trip to Hutchinson at the salt mines planned later this summer. What it’s all about is opening up and giving people those experiences and giving them that meaningful life.”
A few years ago, Mosaic introduced its Mosaic at Home model designed to take clients out of the agency’s group homes at its offices in Liberal and Garden City and put them homes with caretakers. Harshbarger and Director Jacie Butler said this transition has been going quite well.
“We currently have 16 individuals who are in Mosaic at Home,” Harshbarger said. “We have another five or six who are currently go through the process of getting matched, and I think we have about six or seven providers in the works of doing their training at the moment getting ready to do that matching process. It’s going well.”
Harshbarger and Butler agreed it is great being able to have clients matched with caretakers in order to live their best lives.
“Our Liberal day service has been 100 percent no walls,” Butler said. “They have two activities. That’s a real big improvement to where we were once in a sheltered workshop. I’ve been very blessed to have the team I have and gotten to as far as we have so far.”
In the rest of 2025, Harshbarger said agency leaders are looking to continue the growth of Mosaic at Home and getting day services more personalized.
“Ultimately, we would love to have just a huge calendar of events for people to pick two or three of their friends to go do, and they can be scattered all over Southwest Kansas enjoying our area,” she said.
Butler said Mosaic at Home has been especially beneficial for clients.
“We’re seeing people blossoming in their new settings, attending more day service activities, and having that fulfillment of having that family-like setting to go to every day,” she said. “It’s been very heartwarming to see.”
In October 2024, Butler was named Mosaic in Southwest Kansas’s newest director after former director Janeth Trevizo was promoted to the agency’s state operation director. Butler and Harshbarger said the transition from Trevizo to Butler has been a smooth one.
“We are very proud Janeth has moved up to the state operations director,” Harshbarger said. “Jacie has stepped right in, and we have a wonderful team right now. Everybody’s working really well together, and it’s been a good fit for all of us.”
“It’s been really great,” Butler said. “I’ve been in this position since October. I love my team and everything we’ve accomplished so far.”
Another transition in progress for the local agency is the combination of its Liberal and Garden City offices, and Butler said the conversion has been a great one as well.
“It’s been wonderful being able to collaborate, especially with our Liberal and Garden City locations and combining everyone together to celebrate what we do here for Mosaic, supporting people with intellectual disabilities,” she said.
In an area such as Southwest Kansas, Butler said many people overlook the service plan Mosaic has to offer until all stakeholders are together and see how many people play a part in the mission and purpose the agency has on an everyday basis.
“It’s great,” she said. “We’ve been doing this collaborative thing between Garden City and Liberal for the second year, and seeing the sheer size of it has been absolutely amazing.”
With the transition, Butler said she has seen an increase in the friendships formed between staff and clients, as well as caretakers.
“People collaborate, and all the teams networking together has been better than what I could ever imagine,” she said. “With the teamwork and collaboration, I’ve seen everyone work and overcome issues and help fulfill people’s lives on a daily basis. It’s so heartwarming to see.”
Though no date has been set yet, Mosaic does have a fall festival coming up soon, and this is a new activity Harshbarger said the agency has as part of its mission events program.
“We haven’t figured out the logistics of when that will be, but once we figure out those details, we’ll sure share them,” she said.
Other activities taking place in the second half of 2025 for Mosaic include Coffee with the Director and the agency’s signature Partners in Possibilities annual fundraising event. Harshbarger said other events will likely be looked at as well.
“We’re looking forward to what comes next,” she said. “The only thing that stays the same is change, so we’ll see what comes next.”
