These things didn’t pop up in office conversation before I knew about the HBO pageant and documentary Miss You Can Do It, but I’m so glad they did!

Miss You Can Do It profiles several Easter Seals girls with disabilities and their families. This is no Toddlers & Tiaras — it’s heartfelt, it’s real and it portrays ability in an empowering way.

Founded by Abbey Curran, a former Miss Iowa and the first woman with a disability to compete in the Miss USA Pageant®, and former Easter Seals kid, Miss You Can Do It is an inspiration for girls everywhere.

Filmmaker Ron Davis documented the pageant, which takes place one weekend each year. These young girls, along with family and friends, get to be glamorous and celebrate their abilities. No one leaves the pageant empty-handed, with each girl receiving a special award. The film also celebrates the “hero parents” and families, who talk about the joys and challenges of raising a child with special needs.

It was great to hear that HBO, Easter Seals and Comcast would be hosting a Hollywood-style premiere screening on June 18th in Chicago for more than 100 girls and young women, both typically-developing and those living with disabilities. The attendees are going to love the “Glam Girl” activities the premiere party has in store for them — it will be everything the girls need to feel like rockstars, from hair styling and a nail salon right down to volunteers posing as paparazzi, taking photos of the girls walking the pink carpet.

I’m so excited to volunteer at this event and hang out with the girls! We’ll follow up in another post about the party, complete with photos of our Miss You Can Do It celebrities. And mark your calendars for June 24th when Miss You Can Do It airs on HBO!

The reminder of labels struck a chord with me. You see, I’m not a stranger to autism. I’ve always grown up with autism and disabilities being close, if unspoken, companions in my own life. My father has it, my youngest sister has it. I have two learning disabilities myself. And for the longest time, my family and I defined ourselves by our challenges rather than by our achievements. We weren’t Mac and C. We were Auditory Processing/Dysnomia and Autism Spectrum.

But as I grew older, I began to realize I was more than just what “hindered” me. I had many gifts to make up for my different way of doing things and those layers of experiences and abilities meant I was more than what was “wrong” with me. I may be an awful public speaker, but I was a great writer with a brilliant imagination (as long as I had a thesaurus and time to gather my thoughts). I may have a hard time focusing on one person talking in a noisy crowd, but I was gifted at reading comprehension.

I was imperfectly perfect.

The thought blew me away.

Which is why when I watched Temple speak about autism and looking beyond the “can’ts” into the “cans,” I was ecstatic that someone else knew intimately the struggle of working extra hard to appear normal and shared my thoughts on how it should be. We celebrate achievements for people who fall mostly in the norm — why not celebrate what autism/disabled children are good at and celebrate a little more? Celebrating is good. Differences are good. Remembering we shouldn’t let a label decide who we are, and that we should decide who we are ourselves? Well, that’s just perfect.

This is the first year that Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes will be offering the cookie campaign for Easter Seals in ALL of their 128 restaurants across the nation. With the help of generous consumers, 20 Easter Seals affiliate organizations will benefit from this year’s campaign.

From now until the end of June, Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants will donate $1 to Easter Seals for each bag of homemade cookies sold. And that’s not all — restaurant guests will also receive a coupon for a future visit as a thank you for their cookie purchase.

Sweet Tomatoes has supported Easter Seals for six years and has raised nearly $180,000 in support of Easter Seals families. Donations collected from the campaign support Easter Seals programs for children and adults with disabilities.

So just think: you can go ahead and indulge in a bag of homemade cookies without feeling guilty! Each and every time you and your family visit a Souplantation or Sweet Tomatoes in June, you can help support essential Easter Seals programs in your community!

I recently came across a trailer for an upcoming film titled “The Story of Luke.” Before watching the trailer I assumed “The Story of Luke” would follow the typical Hollywood formula. At the surface, central character Luke is a 25 year old man who is jobless and looking for love. As a twenty-something myself, I say, “Welcome to the club, Luke!”

After viewing the trailer I learned this film completely breaks the traditional Hollywood mold. Yes, Luke is a quirky character. Yes, he is single and unemployed. But his role is something that the entertainment industry repeatedly ignores, Luke has autism. The film follows Luke as he adjusts to life after his grandmother (and primary caretaker) passes away.

Luke’s autism is approached in a realistic manner. He is not Dustin Hoffman’s savant character from “Rain Man.” Luke isn’t a human calculator who counts cards, but this does not make him any less of a compelling character. Director Alfonso Mayo approached Luke’s autism in a way that best reflects those living with autism. Mayo’s mother runs a school in Peru for those with developmental disabilities. Many of the school members served as inspiration for the film. Mayo stressed that Luke would not be perceived as a caricature. “We want people laughing with Luke, not at Luke,” Mayo said in an interview with Disability Scoop.

Hollywood take note, autism is NOT a setback, nor is it only interesting in the form of a genius character. Luke’s experience is just like the rest of my generation’s, autism or not. His determination is something all millennial kids can relate to. There is something magical about the way movies affect us. We laugh with them, we cry with them, and we relate to them. Thanks “Bridget Jones’s Diary” for teaching me that it’s OK to eat Ben & Jerry’s in bed!

More than anything else, movies have the ability to inform in an entertaining manner. If Hollywood continues to portray autism in this normalized, realistic way, society will rethink their perceptions. Hats off to you Alfonso Mayo! Hopefully Hollywood will soon follow your lead.

“The Story of Luke” is currently doing the film festival circuit (to rave reviews). The movie is available on both Itunes and Amazon. To learn more about the film you can check out the “Story of Luke” website.

I’m the Chairman and founder of the Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Community Services at Easter Seals. Dixon Center is coordinating, collaborating and consolidating the disparate efforts underway in communities across the U.S. to support veterans and military families.

My mission is to align this nationwide network of support for veterans and military families so that the organizations involved can sustain their momentum and maintain the best possible services. Between the drawdown in Afghanistan and tighter restraints on government fiscal resources, there is a greater need to fill in the gaps. These groups must look beyond the present and consider how they will build for the long haul.

My team and my efforts unite complementary efforts in three areas that are necessary to ensure a sustainable life in civilian society for veterans and their families:

1. Education so that veterans and their families can achieve their graduation goals, go one step beyond their “battlefield knowledge” and better transition to private sector careers that take advantage of their skill sets.
2. Meaningful employment that earns a “family wage” — enough to provide for the veteran and his or her family.
3. Access to healthcare beyond what is provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), including information and options, for a “whole person” concept.

If we can efficiently and effectively provide these elements to our veterans and their families — in the communities where they live — these heroes will thrive.

The idea of community is important. Currently, our veterans and service members come home to a grateful nation. But we also come home to our families, neighbors and communities who — while grateful — also expect us to pick up where we left off.

Together, we can figure this out, challenge the status quo, and do the unthinkable — consolidate efforts to focus solutions for our veterans and military families during their transition and reintegration. As Admiral Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, “Just get them started and I think they’ll soar.”

Freddie Mac is a mortgage finance company. This new program is focused on finding people with autism for the following roles:

• Architecture and Data Services Intern
• SF CFO Strategy, Planning and Development Analyst Intern
• Planning and Development Analyst
• Securities Internship
• Testing Internship

Not being super savvy in the mortgage industry, I’m not even sure what these jobs entail. The good news is that the position descriptions are listed on the ASAN website. The internships are in the Washington, D.C. area and are 16 weeks in duration.

How fantastic that a company as large as Freddie Mac is stepping up and promoting internships for individuals with autism. I hope that other companies hear about the success of this program and consider starting their own.

Individuals with autism have difficulty finding and maintaining employment. Sharing the news of a successful internship program like this might break down barriers and raise awareness that individuals with autism can be valuable employees.

Here’s the thing: The Center on Disability at the Public Health Institute has combined with the Center for Personal Assistance Services at University of California – San Francisco to collect emergency and disaster experience stories from individuals with disabilities who use personal assistance services. The folks conducting the survey call it an “opportunity to share what you have learned in surviving an emergency” and expect these experiences to lead to valuable lessons, techniques, strategies, and skills. To participate, you must :

• Use one or more personal assistants (also known as an attendant or caregiver). This can be someone who you pay for, or someone who volunteers to assist you, including family members or friends.
• Have in the last 5 years (since 2008), lived through a large emergency (such as, but not limited to, a storm, tornado, hurricane, earthquake, fire, flood, heat or cold wave, power outage, or chemical spill.
• Be interested in helping others understand and learn from your emergency experience.
• Be willing to share your written or recorded story on the Center for Personal Assistance Services website.

They point out that By “large emergency” they mean an incident that effected a large physical area, affected many people and overwhelmed local resources and led to the state and possibly FEMA responding. If this is all true for you, then first, and most importantly, I’m glad you are okay! and second, these people would love to have you link to their survey to share your experiences, which may very likely help someone else in the future .

In the meantime, I encourage you to link to the Easter Seals S.A.F.E.T.Y. First page to take a look at our list of tips to prepare for emergencies. S.A.F.E.T.Y. First is a community-based effort to help everyone, especially individuals with disabilities, plan and prepare for personal safety in emergencies.

Comcast donated air time to run Public Service Announcements highlighting the importance of early identification and early intervention for children at risk of developmental delay. I’m pleased to introduce Elise Hough, the CEO of Easter Seals Greater Houston and spokesperson for Make the First Five Count to tell you how The Comcast Foundation is making a difference in Houston.

Using Technology to Empower People with Special Needs
By Elise Hough

Without therapy, training or intervention, people with disabilities can face lifelong challenges. That includes millions of children with disabilities, and for many of them it is not a lack of intelligence or ability, but a lack of training, education or access to the tools and technology that limits their futures.

Consider the Gonzalez family, whom I met a few months ago in my office at Easter Seals Greater Houston. The two youngest Gonzalez children, ages 5 and 6, are healthy, funny and talkative,while the two older children, Matthew, 9, and Matilda, 11, can neither walk nor talk. When we met, their mother told us that Matthew and Matilda were assumed to be very low-functioning because of their significant physical disabilities. Unfortunately, they were never given an assessment to determine if technology could help them. It could.

Within the first 15 minutes of working with an Easter Seals specialist, Matthew, who has limited use of his hands, was using a touch screen on a communication device. Matilda, who can only control the movement in her eyes, was using a communication device powered by her eye gaze. They both sped through the basics — “yes” and “no,” then four-word sentences, and then on to more complex communication. Within minutes, they were communicating, for the first time in their lives, with their mother and siblings.

This is the sort of life-changing impact we have every day at Easter Seals Houston, in part due to the support of our community and partners like Comcast who understand that we all deserve an opportunity to succeed.

Last year, Easter Seals Houston received a grant from the Comcast Foundation to support our BridgingApps Project, which helps families, like the Gonzalez’s, bridge the gap between technology and people with disabilities. Comcast’s support allowed us to significantly expand in-person services and our web site content, which reached over 20,000 users each month. The grant also helped us expand the project to Austin and the Rio Grande Valley in collaboration with Easter Seals Central Texas and Easter Seals Rio Grande Valley.

With the impact of projects like ours in Houston, Comcast broadened its support last January by naming Easter Seals its newest national partner, launching the Comcast Assistive Technology Grant Fund to support Easter Seals affiliates who are working to bring technology resources to individuals and families. The partnership also includes airtime for public service announcements to raise awareness of Easter Seals’ services, particularly our early intervention programs such as Make the First Five Count. We are thrilled about our partnership with Comcast, which this year will allow us to develop a year-long “camp” for children with disabilities, siblings and parents to learn how to use technology focused on improving communication, and support other Easter Seals projects across the country that are helping children and individuals with special needs achieve the best quality of life.

An Army Reserve Specialist about to be deployed to Afghanistan for a year, Richard Mariello was worried about leaving his family behind.

“We were nervous,” his wife, Lynn, says. “We aren’t your typical family.” Indeed, in addition to their teenagers, the Mariellos have fostered more than 20 children over the years.

Fortunately Easter Seals was able to help the family through predeployment, deployment and after Richard returned home. From gift cards for necessities like groceries and gasoline, to connecting the family to sources for home repairs, Easter Seals provided one-on-one support.

Today Richard is happy to serve as the Easter Seals 2013 National Adult Representative.

“We felt like we were swimming,” he says. “We’re strong swimmers but sometimes we got tired and needed a life raft. Easter Seals was our raft.”

When you support Easter Seals, you make it possible for us to meet the pressing needs of America’s heroes: military, veterans, their families, and families of the fallen.

Easter Seals has championed creativity within the autism community with our two Sketch-a-Space competitions — in 2010 and 2012. This new museum provides another forum to celebrate the creativity of those living with autism. I look forward to visiting the galleries, seeing the art and admiring the creativity.