Transcriber: Brian Vuksanovich Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
When I first started to plan out my talk here today,
I knew that I want to hit upon two points,
and that's community and people with developmental disabilities.
And this is important to me because over 50 years ago,
my uncle Brian was born and upon his birth,
the soft spot in this head closed
and his brain was literally being pushed up against his skull,
and he was going to die.
A doctor stepped in,
they removed a part of his skull
in order to alleviate the swelling and they saved his life.
But there's still some damage done to the brain
and from that moment onwards he's a small infant.
My uncle Brian would never be able to live
a fully a functioning and independent life.
That wouldn't stop my grandparents
from trying to give him a meaningful life,
even though there weren't facilities for people like Brian back then,
they were more than just babysitting services
that dealt in the fundamental needs.
And it was hard at times, it really was!
But my uncle Brian, he learned how to skate,
he learned how to ride a bike,
he loved food, loved life,
he wanted to be everyone's friend
and he brought my family close together.
And hearing stories about that,
about the path, seeing who he is now,
and working with other people with disabilities today,
it has become a large part of who I am.
It has taught me to give back,
and that's what I want to do here today with this talk,
bringing these two points together and raising awareness.
And so I started asking questions
and I found out that there's a situation on the horizon.
At this moment, my uncle Brian
is one of 30,000 residents within the state of Illinois.
There's a part of a communal housing system
for the developmentally disabled and the care is getting better,
which is a good thing, they're living happier healthier lives,
But there's a flip side to that:
within the next twenty years,
30,000 more future residents will outlive their parents,
their primary caretakers,
and be introduced into the communal housing system.
The thing is, we do not have the housing capacity
to take care of the current 30,000.
Some facilities have over a 20-year waiting list.
And so a light bulb went off in my head and I realized,
maybe this is how I bring these two points together,
maybe this is how I give back.
So I started to dig, I asked myself:
"OK, we're going to have more residents, we need more communities."
So what is the gold standard community?
I toured facilities, I talked to residents,
I talked to volunteers,
and I found out the gold standard community
deals with physical needs, social needs and emotional needs,
but even doing all that in just a few weeks of work,
it still didn't feel like I had in my talk
so I started to dig more,
I started to look at how are we going to make these facilities run.
The only thing that you need is money, and people who do it,
but how are you going to get this money?
You're going to have to look at government subsidies, private donations.
How much is it going to cost you? 1.5 million dollars? 20 million dollars?
How many hours of volunteer services is that?
And after doing all this work,
all this time spent, all these weeks asking all these questions,
it still hadn't felt like I understood what I wanted to talk about.
I didn't still feel like I knew
what was going to bring these two points together,
even though I was with these people my entire life!
I still didn't know what I wanted to talk about.
So I stepped back,
I went through my own experiences with the disabled,
and I fixated on a moment just a few weeks ago.
There's a place not too far away,
it's a few minutes down the road actually, called Lamb's farm.
It's a communal housing system.
And so I went there, I toured it with my teacher,
and as we were going through the facilities,
we came to the bakery.
The bakery actually has residents working there,
people with real disabilities,
who are functioning to the best of their ability to give back.
And we walked in there, there's a resident behind the counter,
and when we saw her and she saw us, her face lit up with joy.
Without hesitation, she walked up over to my teacher,
hugged him, asked him what was his name,
what did he do, why was he here,
she wanted to be his friend.
And then it hit me:
when was the last time that happened to me?
I'm going to ask, when was the last time that happened to you?
To have your humanity so highly regarded not by a stranger
but by an acquaintance, someone you know, a friend,
to have someone make you feel loved, feel wanted,
like you're part of something more, on their own initiative.
When was the last time that happened to you at work?
At the gym? At school? On your own street?
To know your part of a community,
Can we really say that we are part of a community
if we're surrounded by strangers?
That's when I realized it wasn't just about financing,
it wasn't just about funding, logistics,
it wasn't just about what we can do for the disabled.
It's also about what they can teach us,
what they can teach us about community,
to be loved, to be wanted, to be needed,
to not feel but know you're a part of something more.
And I no longer see
these coming 30,000 residents as a problem.
And through the process of helping them find their humanity,
we will rediscover our own humanity as well.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)