The month of July is Disability Pride Month. Easterseals Capital Region and Eastern Connecticut (CREC) is commemorating the month with a public service announcement: "Disability is Not a Dirty Word."
While there are many words, phrases, and actions that can be offensive to people with disabilities, Easterseals CREC says the goal of its campaign is to raise awareness and take away the stigma.
“It’s a month where we really celebrate our differences. We know some disabilities are visible. Some are not so visible,” said Robin Sharp, President and CEO of Easterseals CREC. “One in 4 adults has some kind of disability. When we start to make judgments about people based on what we can see, we’re kind of discounting everything they are capable of.”
This is the goal of Easterseals CREC. Sharp said the organization works hard to ensure people with disabilities and veterans are able to live life like others, especially when it comes to employment.
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“Here at Easterseals we believe that everybody who wants to work should have the opportunity to work,” Sharp added.
Sharp said that Easterseals CREC has a secure document destruction business, a janitorial and maintenance business, and a warehouse and fulfillment operation out of Norwich - all of which employ people with disabilities.
For Dave Stevens, it is so much more than a month. Born with no legs, he wants people to understand this is his normal.
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“I’m disabled every day and I’m proud of it. I was born without legs, and I try to go out there and lead by example,” Stevens explained. “I wake up every day. I have to get on the ground and crawl around. We go through our own personal struggles, and we live in your world, you don’t live in ours.”
Even with a disability, he's already accomplished more than most.
“If a guy without legs can play college football, minor league baseball, work at ESPN, win 7 Emmys and he can do all of that without legs what’s your excuse?” Stevens added.
He is now working to pass his knowledge along to veterans by teaching them media and television skills.
“So we opened up this program to veterans and their families. We put on podcasts. We cover stories and features about Easterseals or other things of the disabled community,” he explained.
The program is in partnership with Easterseals and Comcast/NBCUniversal, which Stevens said has truly increased the legitimacy of the program.
“Thanks to Comcast and the grants that we have, we have some amazing equipment that we are going to teach skills to those veterans and those families that they can go out and use in the world and go out,” he said. “It’s been great to see the growth that our students have had getting comfortable in front of a microphone."
If you'd like to register for the Digital Skills course for Veterans that Stevens teaches, click here.
