From the CEO
My kids loved the Choose Your Own Adventure book series. This series of children’s books were as much game as they were story. Every couple of pages the reader chose from two or three options as if they were the featured character in the book and thus directed the action and the ultimate outcome of the story. Each book provided a variety of story lines for my sons (or daughter) to read and reread and to see the consequences of their choices.
One of the best books of fiction in 2020 (in my opinion) was Matt Haig’s book Midnight Library with a similar storyline. Nora, the story’s protagonist, explores the question of what makes life worth living when, at the end of her life, she is transported to a library with seemingly limitless books. However, she soon learns that each book is a different story of her life had she made a different choice at one, often insignificant, decision point. Nora, and the reader, learn that each life has potentially infinite number of choices and that the grass is not always greener.
Historically, the disabled individual lived a life with very few opportunities for personal choice. At one time, institutionalization may have been the only option. Congregant living, while less institutional, can result in everyone eating the same meals or following a rigid daily schedule as the group moves from one activity to another. But doesn’t everyone deserve the sense of self-determination and the dignity that comes with a choice-driven life?
Several of our Vantage Grants awarded in the past two years have provided the funding to support agency transformations around a choice-driven life. Career options may now be explored from virtually dozens of options rather than a select few. Social time is filled with clubs and hobbies from archery to Zumba. Guardianships are not automatically assigned at 18 years of age. This month you can read a little more about Cardinal Services in Warsaw and how they are adding “chapters” to the stories of their clients.
Much of what AWS Foundation funds is centered around providing not just opportunities, but choices. It can be with employment, recreation, hobbies, and more. WE BELIEVE that…
Everyone deserves to choose their own adventure and to live the life they want.
