Inspired to work harder and dream bigger

by Katy Beh Neas

Wow! Yesterday’s celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington was pretty sensational, and I felt privileged to be able to be there. The on again off again rain couldn’t dampen my spirits — I was moved by the music, and it was truly inspirational to hear pioneers who have helped shape our country for the better tell their stories of how they came to the fight for justice and freedom for all Americans.

Julian Bond, Andrew Young, and John Lewis were all there, and Julian Bond talked about his grandparents who were slaves — something that seems truly unimaginable today. The remarks of the Reverend Bernice King (Dr. King’s daughter) were particularly passionate and eloquent. She included people with disabilities in her remarks, too. Woo-hoo! Here’s the link to her speech on YouTube.

I was over the moon to have Fred Maahs, Easter Seals national board member and chairman of the board of the American Association of People with Disabilities, as the voice for our community. Fred is an executive with Comcast and was a great spokesperson for people with disabilities. He talked about his life before and after the diving accident that caused his disability and reinforced that while we have a lot to celebrate, people with disabilities still have significant unmet needs. Too many kids aren’t getting the supports in school they need, and too many adults are unemployed.

On a personal note, I am grateful to have been very close to one of the organizers of the 1963 March, Arnold Aronson. Arnie was the founder of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights along with Roy Wilkins and A. Phillip Randolph in 1950. LCCR has coordinated all the federal legislative campaigns for the civil rights community.

Arni’s been gone almost 15 years now, but he was with me today. Arnie often talked about being in the car with MLK on the way to the speech and that Dr. King was coy about the content of his remarks. I hope Arnie and Dr. King would take comfort in the progress that our nation has made over these past five decades. I also hope they continue to inspire us to work harder, dream bigger and remember that kindness, love and respect are essential to progress as a community and as a country.

Welcome, Missouri!

by Beth Finke

We have something big to celebrate in September: this Sunday Life Skills, an agency serving 5,000 individuals with disabilities in Missouri, will affiliate with Easter Seals. That’s right: on September 1, 2013, Life Skills officially joins all our other Easter Seals affiliates and service sites across the country to provide services to people with disabilities and special needs in their local communities.

Both Life Skills and Easter Seals were founded by parents with the goal of creating a better future for people living with disabilities, and Life Skills’ outstanding record for meeting the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families throughout the state of Missouri makes this partnership a perfect fit.

Our new Missouri affiliate will continue to be known by Life Skills, but starting this Sunday, September 1, 2013, they’ll use our Easter Seals name and logo, too. Welcome to the Easter Seals family, Life Skills!

Here’s help for families who can’t afford the internet

by Rachel Talen

You may remember the post I wrote about one of our fabulous corporate sponsors, The Comcast Foundation and the grants it provides  to support assistive technology programs.

Both Easter Seals and Comcast want kids to have the tools they need to start school ready to learn, and now Comcast’s dedication to accessibility has been taken to a new level. Comcast’s new Internet Essentials program offers high-speed Internet service, a low-cost computer and access to free Internet trainings to low-income families in Comcast markets.

It’s an affordable solution that supports Easter Seals families and other families across the country — a huge help, especially now that it’s time for back-to-school preparation. This Internet Essentials program just goes to show how Comcast is working to expand digital literacy by bringing technology into every home.

Thank you, Comcast. Your Internet Essentials program empowers people with special needs and their families and helping them to achieve the best quality of life possible.

Got an eye for design? We need your expertise

by Beth Finke

My colleagues here at Easter Seals Headquarters have been pouring over artwork submitted by kids who receive support at Easter Seals centers all over the country. Only one special piece can be featured on the cover of our 2014 Children’s Art Calendar, and we want you to help choose it. You’ve gotta act fast, though: voting ends today, Friday, August 23, 2013.

Vote for your favorite piece of artwork before the end of the day today and help us reach 5,000 votes to show Emma, Addison and Alani just how much their time, talent and creativity mean to the Easter Seals family. We’ll share the winning cover art in the next Easter Seals eNewsletter, so if you are not a subscriber, be sure to sign up here to receive the September eNewsletter and find out which artwork you’ll be seeing on the cover next year.

PS: You can also reserve your own 2014 Children’s Art Calendar early by making a donation to Easter Seals after you vote. Our calendars always go quickly, so take advantage of this limited-time opportunity and order one now.

Words of wisdom to your younger self

by Patricia Wright

The Thrive group at its capstone event in Boston last December

Easter Seals has been supporting mentorship programs for many years, and if you read my post about the THRIVE program you know that last year we helped launch a mentorship program based at Easter Seals Massachusetts that is focused on young women with disabilities.

Sandy Ho is the Program Coordinator at Thrive, and now she is cooking-up a new awesome project. She’s gathering letters written from women with disabilities to their younger selves and publishing them on a site called Letters to Thrive:

The letters submitted here serve to empower, to be resourceful, to advise, to empathize, to be honest, to brag, to vent, to celebrate, to be heard, to be role models… but most of all to create community out of our shared life experiences.

There are several letters already on the Tumblr Site Letters to Thrive, and they are a great read. And don’t worry, you do not have to follow tumblr to read or submit a letter. The Letters to Thrive tumblr is available by the public, to anyone who has the link and anyone who searches for the letters online.

One letter on the site is written by a woman named Margie. I’ll copy a few lines from the beginning of her letter here to give you an idea of what the Letters to Thrive can be like. “Dear Margie, I know you recently received your first wheelchair,” she starts. “This process is very confusing to you right now. I’m aware of these things because I am the woman you’ll grow up to be.”

Margie continues, convincing her younger self to keep reading: “Don’t worry, I’m not crazy, and I know what I’m talking about. I’m writing you this letter to give some advice that I think will be helpful to you when coming to terms with having a disability.” I learned so much from reading letters like Margie’s on the Letters to Thrive site that I decided to write this blog post as a shout-out to encourage other women with disabilities to submit your letter to your younger self. Your years have brought wisdom, and hey, maybe it’s time to share that wisdom with the world. Margie chose to use her name in the letter she submitted, but other writers choose to remain anonymous. Many of the letters are simply addressed “Dear Younger Self.” Some end with, “Love from your future self.” So you can rest assured that your name can easily be omitted if that’s what you prefer. Thanks for reading — and writing!

Download our disability awareness program for school kids — it’s free!

by Beth Finke

The article below was featured in our August eNewsletter. We love sharing Easter Seals news, so if you’d like to receive our eNews every month, sign up here.

With school starting soon, we’re sharing our free FRIENDS WHO CARE® disability awareness program — it helps parents and educators teach kids about children and adults with disabilities.

Sponsored by long-time Easter Seals partner, Friendly’s Restaurants, LLC, FRIENDS WHO CARE is a fun, interactive program that helps students learn how kids with disabilities go to school, make friends and play. It encourages kids to accept their peers with disabilities as people first, and to find ways to include everyone in school and after-school activities.

Visit our Web site to download the free FRIENDS WHO CARE materials!

Book review: Adiba Nelson’s “Meet ClaraBelle Blue”

by MacKenzie Olsberg

I cut my hand pretty severely last month. Since then, any time I try to wash my hair or make dinner, I hear a line from the children’s book Meet ClaraBelle Blue ringing in my head:

Surprise my dear, surprise indeed! Those are little, tiny things called special needs!

“Special Needs? Special Needs? What does that mean?”

It means it takes her a little bit longer to do every day things.

ClaraBelle Blue’s story reminds young children (ages six to eight) that people with special needs are not all that different except for minor things. The charming main character may have trouble walking, but she still laughs, sings, screams and wins at duck duck goose. That sunny smile, eagerness to play and learn is still there, and having a disability doesn’t hinder it one bit. At the end of the day, ClaraBelle Blue is still ClaraBelle Blue.

This book was written by Adiba Nelson, and it came to be as a personal expression and token of love for her own special needs daughter. You can feel that love on every page. It’s a sweet story with the right amount of silliness (I’m not sure I would ever dine on a sardine and orange marmalade sandwich myself) and seriousness to convey the importance of acceptance of people that may look different, but are really the same mostly.

Indeed, the message seems to be so important to the author that the main characters look similar to her daughter and her, but in a very Disney-style way. The book is illustrated by Elvira Morando and was designed by Ilene Serna. I grew up on the whole princess fad, so their artwork made the book that much more enjoyable.

Pretty art always did lure me into reading certain books as a child. Physically reading it now is a different story. It’s been difficult to do every day simple things since I hurt my hand. Taking a shower has become harder, reaching for things is debatable, and even putting on a sweater takes extra steps. I’m typing this blog post in a different way than I used to do it, too. None of these things are impossible to do, I just do them differently.

You know what, though? I’m still very much the same as before: I can still sing, do dishes, walk and fight the good fight. Something changed with how I live (if only temporarily), but it didn’t alter who I am as a person. Just how I do things versus the way others do them.

The problems I’ve had using my hand lately have helped me appreciate the everyday struggle people with disabilities go through each and every day. Reading this book in addition to my injury helped me also to gain an even greater appreciation for those who look at their disability and carry on doing everyday tasks. They might do them a little differently, but they get things done all the same

A disability may not go away like the injury on my hand will, but living with the injury while reading this book makes me feel I have a better idea of what living with a disability might be like. Not completely — never completely — but more than before. And now I have a wicked cool scar in the making, too.

Choosing to matter with Olympian Julie Foudy

by Beth Finke

Julie Foudy and Amy Liss via ESPNW

I am so pleased to have Amy Liss back again as a guest blogger. We’ve known Amy since she was a baby — she started with physical, occupational, and speech therapy at Easter Seals Du Page and the Fox Valley Region when she was just 5 months old. Amy is a lovely grown woman now, and she works as a Relationship Coordinator at Easter Seals Du Page and the Fox Valley Region. You might recall the guest post Amy wrote last year after taking her first steps with a new piece of equipment to help her walk — now she’s back with a story about the relationship she’s forged with soccer superstar Julie Foudy.

Julie & Me

by Amy Liss

I met Julie Foudy six years ago when she brought a group of volunteers from the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy (JFSLA) over here to Easter Seals Du Page and the Fox Valley Region to do a day of service. She’s come back with volunteers from JFSLA every year since then, always remembering to bring that year’s t-shirt as a special gift for me.

This year she gave me the best gift of all: she invited me to serve on staff at her camp! In case you don’t know who Julie Foudy is, she is an Olympian and played for the US Women’s National Soccer Team from 1987 to 2004. She served as the team’s captain from 2000 through her retirement in 2004. In 2007 she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

Julie Foudy is a commentator on ESPN now, and she’s one of the founders of the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy for girls from 12 to 18 years old. Julie can teach soccer, but her camp teaches much more than that. It teaches girls how to be leaders both on and off the field. She stresses the importance of teamwork, positive attitude and service. Her camp theme is “Choose to Matter” and girls leave her camp with a contract to go back into their community and make a difference.

My week with Julie and her staff at JFSLA was the best week of my life. I did wonder why she would want me on staff. It’s not because of my soccer skills. I’m not a famous name. I realized that Julie believes anyone can be a leader — even me!

My hope and my goal at her camp was to try to make a difference, bring some smiles and let people get to know me — my abilities, my challenges and my lifestyle. I think I achieved my goal. I had the opportunity to not just meet, but to become friends with some of the most genuine people I’ve ever known. Being asked to speak to her campers and staff was an honor and a life changing experience, and when I got home it was difficult to explain just how awesome it was to family and friends. But then Julie did that for me: she wrote an article about us for the ESPNW Newsletter! Here’s an excerpt:

When the girls ask Amy how she deals with her cerebral palsy in such a positive way, she says she’s lucky; a lot of people have it worse than she does. She’s grateful for all that she has, especially her “team.”

In one week, the girls change one another’s lives. Amy affects them the most, and they are not shy about telling me she’s their favorite part of camp — every single one of them! They’re no longer afraid of approaching someone in a wheelchair or worried about how to handle someone with a disability. They move beyond their fear of the unknown, and instead of shying away from one another, they cling to Amy and the lessons they learn from her. Perspective.

I’ve been awed at the number of positive comments from people who read her article and shared it with others, but I’m not the celebrity. I was just blessed to come in contact with a woman who believed in me and helped me believe in myself. Julie and I are good friends now. Together, we “Choose to Matter.”

Life in a post-ADA world

by Denise Rozell

Intern Jennifer Lee overlooking the Mall, Washington D.C.

Every year the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) runs a summer internship program that brings students with disabilities from across the country to our nation’s capital to work in government, non-profit, and private sectors. This summer we at Easter Seals Headquarters were fortunate to have one of the AAPD interns working with us in our office in Washington, D.C. During her time with Easter Seals, Jennifer Lee’s primary project was to update our Autism State Profiles to reflect new autism services and new legislation across the country.

Soon Jennifer will return to her senior year at Brandeis University where she is pursuing a double major in Health, Science, Society and Policy and American Studies.

Because of the ADA

by Jennifer Lee

I was born in 1992, two years after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. Today I am a young person with a disability, and I have never known life without the ADA.

I left my heart in Kewanee

by Elsa Remak

Teyanna and her escort practice the opening dance

Three months ago, I would not have been able to point out Kewanee, Illinois on a map. Two weeks ago, I left my heart there.

Back in May I wrote a post about the Chicago premiere of the HBO documentary Miss You Can Do It. The event changed my life, to say the least. With tear-filled eyes I vowed to myself that it would not be the end of my work with Miss You Can Do It, and I was not alone. The very next day at the office, two colleagues joined me to plan our trip to Kewanee for the 10th annual pageant.

The three of us drove through cornfields and stormy sky’s en route to the event’s dress rehearsal on Friday, July 26. The Kewanee High School auditorium had been transformed into a replica of the Miss USA stage. Christina Aguilera and Pitbull’s latest song blasted through the speakers, glittering light-up streamers filled the room, and trophies (some nearly as tall as me!) lined the stage. I had to remind myself that I was at an auditorium in the heartland, not in Las Vegas.

We were greeted by pageant creator Abbey Curran, who explained that the older girls, the “Miss” contestants (ages 17-25), were working on the opening number choreography. Abbey encouraged us to have fun and root the girls on, so we cheered with every shimmy and turn they did. We couldn’t resist learning the dance ourselves and mirroring the contestants: I still break out the dance any time I hear the song Feel this Moment. We’ve even broken out the moves at the office.

The contestants came from all over the country, and it was amazing to witness them transform from timid to dancing divas in just an hour’s time. Even more special is the way the girls connect to Abbey. It’s clear that she is an inspiration to them. Abbey’s goal with the older girls was to make them feel like beautiful teens and twenty-somethings, and when you see them grinning ear-to-ear while making their confident moves, it’s clear that she succeeded.

During the pageant kick off. The “Miss” girls were joined by the 40 younger contestants and their families. Abbey greeted the enthusiastic crowd with a video of encouragement from a special guest: Katie Couric popped up on the screen to wish the girls good luck. I think I may have screamed louder than anyone else — I have a minor (okay, major) Katie Couric obsession. Abbey was a guest on Katie’s talk show once and obviously left a huge impression.

Ali and her escort practice the opening number

Next came time for Abbey to introduce the pageant’s staff and this year’s handsome escorts. Each girl, donned in her finest casual attire, had the chance to strike a pose and strut across the stage. After the rehearsal we caught up with a couple of our Easter Seals families: the Alfords from Easter Seals ARC of Northeast Indiana, and the Shanks from Easter Seals Southwestern Indiana. Both expressed what a positive impact the pageant has had on their families. It’s fun for the girls, and it can serve as a positive distraction from the challenging lives these special families lead sometimes.

Miss You Can Do It has had a positive impact on me, too: it’s completely changed my perceptions of beauty. I’ve learned that true beauty is the beaming smile and glow of a young girl who feels pretty for the first time in her life.

On the way home from Kewanee, our cheeks ached from smiling, and our palms were numb from clapping, too. I have Miss You Can Do It and Easter Seals to thank for the two best days of my summer, and I can’t wait to see what next year’s pageant will bring.

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