Community Spotlight: Heather Foll from Pickaway County Board of DD

03/16/2022

Community Spotlight: Heather Foll from Pickaway County Board of DD

The Pickaway County Board of DD has been an enthusiastic and trustworthy community partner for many years, from providing services to citizens with disabilities to championing inclusion and diversity. We took a moment to chat with Heather Foll from PCBDD about these topics, as well as the importance of Disability Pride.


Hi, Heather! Thank you for talking to us today. Can you let our readers know what it is you do in your position with the Pickaway Board of DD?

I am the Community Connection Coordinator for PCBDD.  I get to have fun getting to know everyone in our community and connecting people living with disabilities and people without disabilities based on their common interests and passions.  I also help coordinate our social media campaigns and events we hold throughout the year.
 
What’s your favorite part of your job?  

I love getting to know people’s passions and bringing them together with other people who share those same passions.  I like helping people discover that we all have more in common than we think we do. 
 
You’ve taken the initiative to refocus March as Disability Pride Month rather than Disability Awareness Month. Can you tell us a little bit about why that’s so important?  

Although it is important to educate people on awareness of disabilities and how they play a role in people’s lives who are living with them, it’s also important that people living with disabilities are proud of their role as a team members of our community.  Being proud means knowing one’s value and recognizing one’s unique skills and strengths and how they impact others.  Celebrating our uniqueness is a way to embrace inclusion.  Sparking conversations with people who may appear to be different from us will ignite opportunities for each of us to become more inclusive and open-minded. A diverse community is a complete community.


 Heather and her brother, Shane

Heather and her brother, Shane

 

You also help manage the FANS Network and a new project called Common Threads. Tell us more!

Our FANS Network (which stands for Friends, Allies & Neighbors) is a network of people in Pickaway County that I reach out to when we have an opportunity to connect someone with a particular need or interest.  I send an email out to this group (which currently consists of about 450 community members) explaining what it is that is needed and if someone can help, they respond.  If not, they simply hit delete.  It’s that simple.  These requests may be asking for someone to help out with a person’s yardwork or it may be asking if there is an existing book club that would welcome a new member.  Many times, people living with developmental disabilities do not have the social connections that some of us take for granted.  I like to give people the opportunity to come together based on shared interests in the hopes of a relationship forming. 

Common Threads is a social media campaign we are rolling out to celebrate Disability Pride and inclusion.  We are connecting people who share common interests (drummers, bakers, avid readers, guitarists, gardeners, etc.) and setting up a meet and greet for them to meet one another and talk about their passions and get a fun photo taken together that we can share on social media to underline and remind us all that we have more in common than what we have in differences.
 
What advice would you give to people who want to make a difference in their community but aren’t sure where to start?  

Strike up a conversation with someone you might not normally talk to. Buy someone standing in line next to you at the coffee shop a cup of coffee.  I always say that we all need to embrace “getting comfortable with the uncomfortable” because that is what opens up the opportunity to get to know one another and learn more about people who may appear to be different from us.  If you want to learn more about the benefits of hiring someone with a disability or would like to learn more about inclusion and accessibility, feel free to reach out to me!  We will also be rolling out a fun program called “Inclusion Takeover” this year, which offers up the opportunity for businesses and organizations to have their team members become “Inclusion Ambassadors” by accessing an array of online resources that educate on topics of disability rights history, inclusion, disability etiquette, and accessibility. 
 
Where can folks find and follow the Board of DD online?

We can be followed on Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter, and/or YouTube and our website is wwwpickawaydd.org  
I can be reached at either [email protected] or 740.477.3353 ext. 39

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