Puzzle Pieces

When launching my nonprofit that serves those with intellectual disabilities, I had to stretch every dollar to operate. While we are in a better place nine years later, I am still making hard decisions in order to remain fiscally responsible and a good steward of our funds.

Despite beginning with less than 20 clients and growing to nearly 200, there remains a great need in my community for services for those with disabilities. My nonprofit currently has a waiting list of 38 -- higher than ever before. We don’t have adequate operating funds to recruit and retain staff to support additional clients while maintaining our high quality of services, equipment, and supplies for our existing clients. We need more foundational startup money to educate and train added staff members in order to sustain more clients, which is where a portion of the Elevate Prize would be utilized.

Because we are a young nonprofit, we would use another portion of Elevate funding to begin an endowment to ensure our long-term sustainability. An endowment would give us the financial security to begin our long-term goal of expanding our impact across the country by creating chapters of my nonprofit.  

Growing up with a brother who has a rare disability forged my path. Wanting more for him and my parents, I left a career as a special education teacher to open a nonprofit that served individuals with any intellectual disability and their families. Through social, vocational, residential and employment divisions, Puzzle Pieces serves nearly 200 clients in western Kentucky. 

My goal is to impact the world so that inclusion of those with disabilities will be without thought, rather than something parents must fight for. I have dedicated my life to a new approach for disability services for others like my brother, for other siblings like me, and for other parents like my own. And although providing a tailored service to each individual is my goal for Puzzle Pieces, I want more. I launched a blog and podcast to provide hope and strategies for special needs parents on a global scale and have been able to offer messages of acceptance and inclusion to a vast audience. I recently authored a children’s book that is designed to help all parents start conversations about disabilities as they read about a neurotypical child’s curiosity and desire to understand those different from him. 

Approximately 1 – 3 percent of the global population has an intellectual disability—as many as 200 million people. Only 34% of that population is employed and has fewer social networks and friendships beyond families. Puzzle Pieces offers research-based solutions to help nearly 200 clients with intellectual disabilities play an active role in their community. Our social/vocational training provides peer relationships and greater independence, while our residential programming provides 24-hour care to individuals without families or with aging parents. 

Additionally, we have helped more than 20 individuals find meaningful careers in our local workforce and created a workforce coalition to help businesses include those with disabilities in their hiring process. 

Finally, children and adults with mobility limitations and intellectual or learning disabilities are at greatest risk for obesity. Kentucky’s 34.6% disability rate makes it one of the highest in the country. Kentucky also ranks 45th in the country in relation to physical inactivity. For this reason, we have forged unique partnerships with state health initiatives to combat obesity among our clients. We also secured the country’s first interactive sensory playground/museum to help disguise physical activity as play in order to improve the wellbeing of our clients.

Organizations that serve those with intellectual disabilities implement a caretaking model, ensuring that physical and medical needs are met. I built Puzzle Pieces to take a radical approach in the field of disability services. We provide a whole-life model, offering our clients socialization with peers, job training and employment placement, healthy living education, and volunteerism opportunities. We strive to help our clients live meaningful lives, tailored to their specific dreams. For Marcus, that was teaching dance at a local studio. For Jamie, that means singing “Amazing Grace” at local events. For Jeff, that means hosting a local talk show.

 In a similar model, I have worked to build support in our community through disability awareness training. I hosted a community conversation that brought together over 50 local health professionals and stakeholders to discuss ways in which our community was successful at promoting inclusive, healthy opportunities and ways to improve. I have also created a coalition that focuses on disability awareness in the workplace, which educates ways to employ those with disabilities and also make workplaces more inclusive.

Through Puzzle Pieces, my children’s book and my personal blog and podcast, I am hoping to change the way society views those with intellectual disabilities. Individuals with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism -- any disability -- do not need our pity. They need to live in communities that empower them to dream and live fulfilled lives, just like anyone else. We need to teach our children not to point and laugh at those with disabilities, but we also do not need to shush, redirect or teach our children to ignore these individuals either. 

In my community, I am beginning to see these changes. Through a partnership with the local school system, I have created a peer mentor program, where students visit my nonprofit and mentor a peer with an intellectual disability. I have also seen inclusion grown in the local business community, where over 20 individuals with disabilities have been hired into meaningful careers. One individual with Down syndrome not only is working professionally at a local bank (his ideal career that allows him to network with others), but he also was able to launch a talk show on social media where he interviews local leaders.