I’m a big fan of Kim Hauck. She’s the director of the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, and she and her team make a difference in our world, every single day.

I opened my Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday and was elated to read Kim’s editorial, How you can show support for people with disabilities.

There’s a PDF of the Enquirer article below (no link available for the Cincy version, sadly BUT there is a link to a version published in the Columbus Dispatch.)

I love this piece for two reasons:

1. The mind/word shifts she describes are spot on! Plain language, remembering that people with disabilities are people first, supporting businesses for which equity and inclusion are just part of their DNA. All good.
2. The clincher, for me at least, is this sentence: Making our state more inclusive and accessible starts with me and you. No truer words ever typed/spoken :)

A couple of weeks ago, Starfire visited two cemeteries to commemorate Disability Day of Mourning. Attendees were asked how they felt about the visit, and Katie Robinson from Central Ohio, shared:

Biggest difficulty of being a multiply-disabled person is not about access, like getting on a bus ... it's society's views on disability that stems from the mindset of this institutionalization or the medical model of disability that perpetuates that there's something wrong with me that needs to be fixed."

Take a minute to listen to the podcast series, Unnamed & Unknown, share this story, infuse inclusivity into your day/week/month/year/DNA, and if you can, support our work to build a more inclusive world alongside people with developmental disabilities, one relationship at a time.