APRIL News 2003 ANNUAL REPORT EDITION

Farewell and Welcomes!

Besides being a year of tremendous growth and activity for APRIL, in 2003, we said goodbye to our President of six years – Mike Schafer, and at the Annual Membership Meeting on October 10, 2003, Mary Holloway was voted in to succeed Schafer.

Farewell to Mike

When Mike Schafer was elected President of APRIL back in October of 1997, the organization was considerably smaller. There were no paid staff, few services to members, and board members routinely volunteered to take on a variety of tasks to keep the operation afloat. And, though we had a couple of conferences under our belt, no one really anticipated just how popular and successful this annual event would become.

Schafer says the biggest milestone APRIL has reached thus far is the series of events that allowed the organization to hire staff, establish a full time national office, offer more programs to members, and the demand for APRIL's participation in and impact on national disability policy – especially in the area of rural transportation. “Rural transportation issues are huge, and it is critical that APRIL continue to focus a good deal of its resources to address this issue, and remediate this problem of lack of rural transportation options for people with disabilities. There are no quick fixes for this problem, and change will likely come slowly, but I hope APRIL keeps chipping away at this problem”. Schafer stated.

Another strength that Schafer has seen emerge over the course of his presidency, is also a source of continuing challenge. While the broad geographic distribution of the Governing Board is an asset in bringing diverse viewpoints to the table, the very nature of a national board and its distance from the national office can create huge communication issues. Even with the advent of the internet and e- mail, much can lost in this form of communication and the personal flavor of a local board meeting on a Monday night in the conference room, is essentially lost. With the initiation of two face-to-face meetings each year - the annual board retreat and annual board meeting, the board has grown tremendously in advancing the goals and objectives of APRIL.

“Living in rural America will always carry unique challenges for those of us who choose rural America as our home.” Schafer said. “I hope that the membership continues to recognize the important role APRIL plays in serving as the national voice for rural independent living. I urge all APRIL Members to become involved in some way with APRIL.”

Thank you, Mike, for your dedicated service and the important role you have played in making APRIL the fine organization it is today.

An Interview with APRIL’s New President

It is important for APRIL members to get to know the person they have chosen to lead their organization for the next two years – at least. Though we all may think we know Mary Holloway – as a leader in the independent movement, a fine executive director of a CIL, or even as a great stand-up comedian at APRIL Fools and Follies, this interview gives a fresh perspective on our new President.

Can you give a little background as to how long you have been in the IL movement, at your CIL etc?

I grew up on a farm, one of 7 kids. It was also home to my paternal grandmother and for 8 years was the home of my maternal grandmother and grandfather. Through the years cousins and aunts also lived with us - some out of financial necessity. Others lived with us because there was a need for a care-giver, either during a dying process, or a health decline or a rehabilitation process.

As a person with a hearing impairment, from very early on, I have fond and some not so fond memories of how my community, school and sometimes family interacted and responded to that particular disability. I don’t think you ever start or stop being a part of the Independent Living movement. I do think sometimes people are assets to the movement and sometimes people are barriers to that movement. If you truly believe in the value of people and that there is always a way to overcome obstacles, then the two biggest components of Independent living are met.

I was fortunate enough to be hired on at the Resource Center for Independent Living, Inc in the small town of Osage City, Kansas in May of 1990. The day I started the former director had retired and with a budget of less than $50,000.00. We had 1.5 FTE (including me). My family bought a house less than a block from the office. The thought was if the center ran short of money, I could walk to and from work to cut expenses. What a wonderful experience these last fourteen years have been. Everything from the consumer groups who told me what I was doing right and wrong, to the experiences both positive and negative, within the state and on a national level.

You've been involved with APRIL for several years now. Is there any changes in the organization that stand out in your mind, which you'd like to comment on?
The biggest change in my opinion has been the sense of success and honor amongst the membership. When I first started attending APRIL meetings, they were part of the Common Threads conferences held in Missoula, Montana - a few people getting together as a tag on to another conference. Today, there is a sort of work ethic and esteem amongst the membership that has been the backbone of APRILs success as an organization.

What do you see as some significant challenges facing APRIL as you begin your presidency?
Some of the most significant challenges have to do with how APRIL is going to respond to the changing face of rural America. Our country has lost some focus on assuring progress in rural America with regard to economic well-being, employment opportunities and transportation. But the surprise is that we not only survive, we succeed. There will be a point when it is important for us at APRIL to remember our history and be able to train people in that history so that progress, despite obstacles, can continue. We have to stay at the table. We have to be there when decisions are made on transportation funds, on health care, on access and accommodation issues. We have to be brave enough to represent rural issues in groups that often don’t focus on rural, in locations that are not in rural areas and we have to make our case with intelligence and pride. That representation in all disability interest arenas throughout our nation is the biggest challenge to APRIL in the next few years.

What are the greatest opportunities?
In 1994 my brother had a motor-cycle accident. He was in a coma for 8 months. During that time, my father had a stroke and we as a family were keeping vigil around the clock at two different hospitals. I don’t remember a day going by that someone didn’t advise the family to give up on one or the other. Everyone had an opinion on decisions and actions the family should make. We held strong. We heard every negative thing about our family member’s possible future. But we (the family) knew something that none of the rest of the medical community knew about this family. Commitment to the future means overcoming the negatives of today. We did everything we could think of to lift the entire family. We celebrated early, we celebrated late. We told each other stories. We told our stories to strangers. Our goal was to do and say and be better than anything that was going on around us that was bad. It paid off.

When I consider APRIL’s greatest opportunity, I believe it is the same thing, on a broader scale. We have an opportunity to build, mold and forge a future that our communities and even our country can’t imagine for people with disabilities. We have an opportunity to take action in our own towns as well as on a national basis to do more good than we ourselves can now imagine. The energy, commitment and honor of our membership is our greatest opportunity.

Finally, do you have a vision of where you would like to lead APRIL in the coming years?
I hope that APRIL is a partnership of members that helps hold each other to the highest standard of commitment to creating, recognizing, and implementing our own opportunities for success and a future that will allow the next generation a firm place to build upon. As members of APRIL we must work today for a better tomorrow, I want to be a part of that tomorrow; I want my family, friends, community, my country, and myself to be better because of the accomplishment of APRIL. That’s my vision for APRIL.

Helen Roth – Earl Walden Rural Advocate of the Year

One might say that Helen Roth’s first advocacy action (way before ADPAT was in the picture) was as a small child in the Los Angeles Children's Hospital. The year was 1939 and she was one of the thousands of children around the country who had contracted polio. She recalls the reason for her “street theater” antics – hospital food! “They used to bring us a breakfast with boiled eggs so soft they were practically raw and the head nurse would not let us be pushed out on the rooftop porch until we had eaten every little bite - - even if it made us sick. When I finally got so I could walk a little with braces and crutches, I would gather up the uneaten portions in a bag which I threw over the edge of a first floor balcony and we would all go out on the porch and have fun,” an older, more mature Roth recalls.

Forty years later, she learned more advanced advocacy techniques from Mary Lou Breslin at a DREDF 504 training in Salt Lake City. An executive director of a community action agency in Logan, Utah at the time, that training was her first contact with an organized group of people with disabilities. “It was a real culture shock,” she states. “I had been going it alone for so many years, it took me awhile to decide whether or not I wanted to identify with such rag-tag, organized disability efforts. I finally came to embrace my peers with disabilities, and fully dedicated myself to working alongside them to improve our world.”

Roth considers her greatest accomplishment to be the establishment of OPTIONS for Independence in Logan Utah. She played a significant role in writing the proposal for funding and in directing the CIL once it opened. Of equal importance to her, however, is the constant national and local push she has made for CILs to do systems change advocacy and to view themselves as a part of the national Independent Living Movement.

As to the greatest advocacy challenge facing rural America, Roth thinks it is the ability to strike a balance between confrontive and cooperative activities. To advance any issue agenda, it is necessary to appeal to residents in the community, rather than turning them to "backlash" reactions to the issue. In other words, advocacy has to be strong enough and confrontive enough to get attention but considerate enough to gain cooperation. Roth has observed that rural people refuse to be pushed or forced.

Her advice to rural colleagues? “Independent Living is just simply part of me and my life. It is exciting and has the potential for great beneficial changes in civilization as we know it -- as long as people with disabilities are willing to assume or take power and control the development of those changes. Individual services are necessary and valuable to identify issues for advocacy and to engender support for CILs, but the most efficient, effective work comes from advocacy activities that improve the lives of large numbers of people all at the same time. So, just keep on keeping on,” she adds.

(Editor’s note: In the fall of 2003 Roth retired from her position as Executive Director of OPTIONS. She has initiated a business called "Helen C. Roth Disability Consulting." doing grant writing, other technical writing, editing, development of training materials, organizational structure and functioning improvements, or other disability-related consulting via computer, mail and/or phone. She can be contacted at helencroth@msn.com or 435-752-7655).

CONFERENCE IN SAVANNAH

How Sweet It Was
The Ninth Annual National Conference on Rural Independent Living, held in Savannah Georgia on October 11 -13, was the biggest and the best yet! (Yes we say this every year, but every year it’s true!) We were motivated by Gina McDonald, mesmerized by David Jayne and moved by Duncan Wyeth. The first year for our Brag n Steal Sessions went very well, we had youth involved in a bigger way and the workshops fit the bill. People spent off conference hours strolling on the boardwalk down by the river or wandered over to the open air City Market to listen to music and eat southern food. APRIL Fools and Follies was quite the production, as the photo below attests to, and once again people paid compliments on the hotel and food choices.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the weekend was at the Welcome Reception and the selection for the 2005 conference site was decided by members and other attendees. The number one choice was Hawaii! Can these conferences get much better?

PROGRAM UPDATES

APRIL and IL NET – APRIL is proud to be a part of a new project that the IL Net is implementing that creates a whole different approach to addressing the Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) concerns of centers for independent living (CILs) and Statewide Independent Living Councils (SILCs). Six new Regional Coordinators are in place around the country and are contacting CILs and SILCs offering their services to reacquaint directors with the vast array of training materials available through the IL Net. Besides helping CILs and SILCs develop training plans and organize training events, it is part of the Regional Coordinator's job to build ongoing relationships and to identify individuals from the IL community who are knowledgeable about various IL topics and develop a network of experts for cross-training and peer mentoring. And, while the IL Net offerings are the main focus of this project, Regional Coordinators will be providing a wide array of training resources as may be appropriate. APRIL is a sponsoring site and Kathleen Hatch is Regional Coordinator for states in Regions 5 and 7. Check out the APRIL website at www.april-rural.org to get contact infomration on all the IL Net Regional Coordinators. The IL Net is the T&TA resource for the field of independent living and is a joint project of the Independent Living Research Utilization ILRU) and the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL).

CIL-to-CIL Peer Mentoring - We believe that 'experience is the best teacher" when it comes to operating a CIL. While peer support has long been a cornerstone of the core services of centers for independent living (CILs), it is only recently being developed as an approach to providing training and technical assistance to CIL staff and boards. For the past two years, APRIL's Rural Independent Living Leadership Mentoring Initiative (RILLMI) with the Rural Institute on Disabilities has included the peer model for both short-term and more intensive peer mentoring of CILs. In 2003, with additional funding from the IL Net the program was significantly expanded and seven CILs had site visits from a Peer Mentor. Individualized support tailored to specific needs and confidentiality are the hallmarks of this program. Sites are selected annually at the end of the year, and the call for applications goes out in mid October. Contact the APRIL office at aprilrr@neo.rr.com for more information.

Transportation Project Rolls Along

APRIL’s “National Demonstration of a Rural Employment Transportation Voucher Model: Placing Control in Our Hands” is up and rolling and showing a significant impact in helping people with disabilities get the rides they need. The ten demo sites (8 CILs and 2 121 Projects) are doing a lot with a little funding. The following table shows some performance data for the first two years of operation.

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA    YEAR ONE    YEARS ONE & TWO
Number of consumers    173    378
Miles provided    53,520    357,987
Trips provided    4100    33,653
Payments to providers, $    19,710    146,943
Average cost per trip,   $    4.81    $4.37
Average cost per mile, $    0.37    0.41
Average miles per trip    13.1    10.6

During the first two years, 56 people obtained employment (37 full-time and 19 part-time). A similar number of consumers who were employed when they enrolled in the program have reported that the Traveler’s Cheque Program has either helped them maintain their current job or improve their employment (found a better job, were able to increase the number of hours worked or moved to a more rewarding job with their original employer).

An important aspect of this demonstration project is to help the demo sites identify funding and other resources to keep the project going after the grant ends in 2006. Each site has developed a Transportation Interest Network that includes key people who either need transportation, or provide services to people who need transportation. They are looking at ways to bring more transportation resources to their respective communities. APRIL has taken up the cause as well.

Transportation Advocacy

At the national level, APRIL has been advocating for increased options in rural transportation with other federal agencies such as the Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) at HHS and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) at DOT. For several years, APRIL has been working with other advocacy groups to help shape the reauthorization of the Transportation Act to bring more funds into rural areas, to mandate coordination amongst community providers of transportation services, to encourage the support for innovative programs (such as the use of vouchers), and to call attention to the need for a formalized state level planning process for rural transportation..

Project staff members and several site representatives took an active role in bringing the rural transportation issues to the table at a series of Regional Dialogues on Accessible Transportation sponsored by FTA and held during the FY 2003 in Anchorage, Alaska, Kansas City, Missouri, Dallas, Texas, and Louisville, Kentucky. In many instances, rural issues emerged as the top recommendations to FTA on accessible transportation.

In addition to the regional dialogues noted above, a special one day Dialogue on Rural Transportation was held in Washington DC in conjunction with FTA’s celebration of ADA week in late July. APRIL took the lead in planning and presenting this dialogue that is producing a National Action Plan for Rural Accessible Transportation.

The 2003 Financial Picture

The year 2003 was a significant one for APRIL’s infrastructure. Under the guidance of Connie Pasko, bookkeeper, the fiscal department moved all of it’s transactions from Hays Kansas (under a contract with LINK, Inc) to the national office in Kent, Ohio. Having all of APRIL’s business located under one roof has meant having the ability to give our board and membership better information, more quickly. The Pie Charts below show at a glance, how our funds are received and expended. For further information, a copy of the 2003 Audited Financial Statements are available, upon request.

What I Liked Best About the Conference

Excellent amount of time for networking and meeting people.
The networking was great. Got to meet old friends and get updates on activities and get introduced to a lot of new faces. The sessions were great – good presenters with information that was useful.
Fools and Follies is always fun.
Casual nature – emphasis on rural needs – not so much political.
It’s all about RURAL!
The wealth of good resources made available through the sessions and having long enough breaks to go to the restroom and not be late for the next session! GREAT JOB!
The people attending and this wonderful city. Felt like the workshops were above average. Great resources for rural people.
I enjoy all the new ideas and people when we come together – I always leave energized with new hope and ideas that the 360 other days of the year battles are successful. Thanks for this conference.
Bringing in the youth! This was very important that we have them in APRIL to make sure advocacy continues. Each year things move along smoother than last year.

APRIL GOVERNING BOARD

OFFICERS
President                            Internal Vice President
Mary Holloway                        VACANT
Resource CIL, Inc.
Osage City, KS

External Vice President         Immediate Past President
Carol Fontaine                        Mike Schafer
Western Wyoming CIL        League of Human Dignity
Lander, WY                            Lincoln, NE

Secretary                              Treasurer
Liz Sherwin                            Robert Gomez
Illinois/Iowa CIL                    Dakota CIL
Rock Island, IL                    Bismarck, ND


MEMBERS AT LARGE

Billy Altom                  Mike Blatchford                   Tom Osborn
Delta Research CIL ASSIST! To Independence    N. Central IL
Pine Bluff, AR         Tuba City, AZ                         Black Eagle, MT
Gary Maddox            Garry Owens               Ron Rocha
ACCESS II ILC           Red Rock CIL                ARCIL
Gallatin, MO            St. George, UT             Austin, TX

Pat Puckett            Susan “Tink” Miller        Kathleen DeSpain
Georgia SILC            Placer IRS                     OPTIONS for Ind.
Decatur, GA            Auburn, CA              Logan, UT

Steve McCallum           Sid Cook
Programs for Accessible Living                CIL of Central
Charlote, NC                                             Grand Island, NE

APRIL TEAM
Linda Gonzales, Executive Director
Dennis Stombaugh, Transportation Program Manager
Kathy Hatch, IL Net Regional Coordinator
Connie Pasko, Bookkeeper
Elissa Cole, Administrative Assistant

APRIL is national, grass roots, not for profit membership organization dedicated to promoting independence and striving for full rights and benefits for individuals with disabilities living in rural America. All materials are available in alternative formats upon request.

APRIL

5903 Powdermill Road

Kent, Ohio 44240

330-678-7648 (Voice)

330-678-8467 TDD
330-678-7658 (FAX)

aprilrr@neo.rr.com