My Relationship to Disability

     Growing up in a small town, I was not exposed to people with disabilities at a young age. Once I was in high school, I had gained a small amount of exposure to people with disabilities; this included the Special Olympics club I was in, which helped host events for kids with disabilities, like baseball games, kickball, occasionally eating lunch with them, and a prom! This gave me an idea of what it is like, then once I got into college, I was exposed to a whole new world.

My Experience 

   One specific experience that helped me learn more about disabilities was in my sophomore year of college, in my Ethics and Teamwork class. In this class, we were required to complete a service learning experience as teams. For my service learning, I chose to go to The Arc, and developing and implementing this service-learning project as a team was a very engaging experience. A lot was learned along the way; I learned a lot about my team and how helping the community is so beneficial. Creating a plan was extremely important for our services since we needed to know what ingredients we needed for each snack before the beginning of our service.

   I learned that you never know how something is going to go; it may go as planned, or you may have to adjust to certain circumstances. One situation was that one week we had a group with a peanut allergy, so we had to adapt our snack plan to accommodate the individual with the allergy. Our project provided direct service to adults with disabilities in a day program, educating them about healthy eating habits. We held weekly sessions where we demonstrated how to make simple, healthy, and interesting snacks that they can prepare independently using our recipes.

   I did not like, but LOVED the people I got to experience engaging with at The Arc. Seeing all the smiles on their faces when my group and I came in every Monday brought so much joy to my heart. I wish I had the time to continue to come here every week because I could see they truly enjoyed what we did for them. I loved creating the snack with them as well. My grandma was a culinary teacher, so I have always enjoyed making treats, even these healthy snacks, which I found beneficial for myself at home to make as well. Additionally, I liked how comfortable I was able to get with the individuals; it felt like we had known them for so long, and they made it such an enjoyable experience.

Last Thoughts

  The way I looked at inspiration porn at first was that it was just meant to be encouraging, but once I did a little bit more research, I learned that it is not true inspiration if you are using someone's disability as a main source to feel encouraged.