Sharon Mortimer is a woman from whom many have benefited and many more currently are learning from, and now she has left her mark on Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School (BMLSS) for generations to come.

What started out as a dream for her last June has finally come into being in the shape of the brand new Snoezelen room.

Snoezelen is a Dutch term, a combined meaning of the words for “sniff” and “doze”. The room is designed to be a calming and relaxing environment that at the same time “ignites the senses”, said Nicole Maclean, the school’s occupational therapist.

Mainly used for people with autism or mental disabilities, the room is designed to send stimuli to the various senses using things such as fibre-optic lights, sheepskin rugs and a ball pit.

The room in BMLSS originally “started as a storage room, but Mortimer has made it into a vast oasis of relaxation,” gushed Elaine Beatty, Trillium Lakelands District School Board trustee, at its grand opening. Held last Friday, the open house started in the school’s McMurray room, where a few words were said by people who effected the project.

Two people who were greatly involved were Alan and Lisa Cumber, owners of Muskoka and Parry Sound McDonald’s restaurants. They arranged for the Ronald McDonald House Charities to fund the Snoezelen room.

“It’s actually an adapted version of a Snoezelen room,” clarified Maclean, “but the kids are still exposed to wonderful stimulation.”

There are currently half a dozen students at BMLSS that use the room on a regular basis. “It allows them to take in stimulation in a controlled way,” Maclean explained. “It’s designed to be cosy and comforting, though.”

The child’s comfort is a main concern in the room, which is why it is for individual use only; a student one-on-one with their therapist, so they can relax their own way, and their specific and unique progress can be monitored to get the benefits they need.

The room also assists in BMLSS’s PALS program. PALS stands for “Practical Academics & Life Skills”, and spending time in the Snoezelen room adds to the program. It integrates both focus and concentration, and the students often are better able to partake in their academic classes after spending time in the Snoezelen room.

The room incorporates lights and textures, as well as other ways of igniting the senses. It has fibre-optic lights, a ball pit to provide total body sensation, different blankets as well as a sheepskin rug to demonstrate texture, and Maclean’s personal favourite, a bubble tube. It also has different sitting positions so students who are in wheelchairs can experience the difference of a wheelchair to, say, a beanbag chair.

In total the room cost around $17,000, and a cheque to that amount as well as a plaque was presented to Mortimer by the Cumbers. Lisa Cumber summed the event up nicely: “This room is not just for the children. It trickles down to the teachers, to the parents and to the community.”

And from the community, we would like to say thank you and congratulations to Sharon Mortimer, a teacher who isn’t afraid to go the distance for her pupils.