JEROMESVILLE — Olivia Burgess participates in Hillsdale Local Schools’ Kindness Club, is in Future Farmers of America and works as the girl’s basketball team manager.
The 16-year-old junior sat at a table with an orange cloth across it in Hillsdale’s auxiliary gym. On Wednesday, she talked to her peers about spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease she and her brother both have.
Burgess explained that SMA means she’s missing a protein that strengthens her muscles. Over time, she said, it causes them to weaken. Even though there are medications that help with the disease, there is no cure yet.
“You never know what people are going through,” Burgess said. “Just looking at me, you wouldn’t know I have this disease.”
Her table, manned by Burgess and her 14-year-old brother, was one of ten stations at Hillsdale’s first Disability Awareness Fair.
Throughout the day, Hillsdale students from the third grade through 12th cycled through the gym to learn about disabilities, careers working with people who have them and ways to be more accepting. The stations returned in the evening and were open to parents, too.
For Burgess, it was an opportunity to share about something she’s dealt with her whole life.
A deeper look
Deana Gilmore, Hillsdale’s director of special services, has worked in special education for over 20 years. It’s her sixth year as the district’s special services director.
Her job consists of helping with individualized education programs (IEPs) and 504 plans, which help students with disabilities receive services and support in school.
Gilmore, along with a mental health team, put together Wednesday’s Disability Awareness Fair. The idea first came up nearly three years ago from the high school’s Kindness Club, run by Hillsdale’s media center specialist, Scarlett Raines.
But, when COVID-19 came, it was pushed back. Gilmore said they spent a year preparing, lining up vendors and sponsors. This year is the first Hillsdale has hosted the fair.
Its purpose, she said, was to raise awareness and acceptance for those with disabilities. Gilmore said it can be easy to look past each other if they’re deemed as “different.”
“Hillsdale is a small, rural school district, and we always talk about ‘our family,’” Gilmore said. “In every family, you still have needs that may arise. And we just want to make sure that our family is accepting of everybody that is in our district, no matter if there is a learning disability, no matter if there is a difference in ethnicity, whatever the difference might be.
“We all belong, we all are accepted.”
The fair
In the end, the fair hosted tables about music therapy, Ohio Deaf and Blind Education Services, Hunt for Hope, Ashland County Health Department and more.
Gilmore said the event came together thanks to help from a number of community sponsors from Hayesville, Ashland and Jeromesville who donated gifts and prizes for students.
Students received “passports” when they walked in the door. Each booth gave out stamps, and students could enter their passport into a prize drawing if they received a stamp from each booth.
Kallie Poast, a teacher for the visually impaired and certified orientation and mobility specialist, hosted one of the tables.
She works with Mid-Ohio, and said she helped some students write out their names in Braille at the fair.
“The students have been really engaged, and it’s been fun to see them learn about visual impairments,” Poast said.
She added she’d return again if Hillsdale hosted the fair next year, or if other districts wanted to host similar opportunities.
Jonathan Fox, a 17-year-old junior at Hillsdale Local Schools, attended the fair and helped run a table for the school library.
Fox has a work-study in the library. His table displayed books like “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio, “Mosquitoland” by David Arnold and the novel version of “Dear Evan Hansen,” a Broadway musical. All touch on themes of students with disabilities and acceptance.
While some students didn’t ask about the books, Fox said others flipped through them and asked him for lists so they could check them out at the library later.
“It’s nice to bring people together with knowledge,” Fox said. “That’s something I really believe in.”
The final word
Gilmore, the district’s director of special services, said she was “ecstatic” about how the event turned out.
Students told her they learned about careers they didn’t even know existed. She said some teachers didn’t understand the event, but by the time they left, they did.
“I wanted to reach one student and one teacher today,” Gilmore said. “I think we’ve done that.”
For Burgess, the student sharing her experience with her peers, the day started off with nerves. It brought her out of her shell.
In the end, though, Burgess said hearing some of the feedback was “heart-touching.” She didn’t expect some of the younger teens to be so accepting and engaged, but said they were.
Her hope is that the event encouraged people to talk to those with physical disabilities, and not to treat others differently because of their abilities.
“We’ve got a lot of good hearts in this building,” Burgess said.
Below are more photos from Thursday’s event.
