The Future Looks Bright After Presenting at My First Family Café:, By Jason Hahr
It is time to put virtual pen to paper once again. The
Voiceless Minority has been silent for the last two months, and we apologize
for that. As anyone who is an activist for any cause knows, advocacy never
stops. We recognize that our silence over the last two months not only affects
us personally, but also significantly impacts The Voiceless Minority as a
whole. That being said, let’s transition into today’s post.
On June 14th, Michelle Zeman, Samantha LeBron,
and I gave a presentation at the 27th Annual Family Café, which told
the story of the Voiceless Minority, at least, up until now. For those who are
not aware, The Family Café is a Florida-based organization that has held the
largest disability resource expo in the United States for the last 27 years.
According to their website, The Family Café began in 1998 when
a group of parents of children with disabilities recognized their shared this
is challenge in finding the information, resources, and knowledge they required
to facilitate their children’s educational development. In response to this
need, they came together to found The Family Café, an organization with a
mission to provide individuals with disabilities and their families with
opportunities for Collaboration, Advocacy, Friendship, and Empowerment by
serving as a facilitator of communication, a space for dialogue, and a source
of information.
To fulfill
that mission, The Family Café created its signature event, The Annual Family Café. It would provide a unique
environment where families can connect with peers, commercial service
providers, and public entities to discover the services available to them,
identify which ones best serve their needs, and learn how to access those
services, all in a family-friendly, welcoming environment that emphasizes
community and inclusion.
Since its
inception, The Annual Family Café has grown from about 1,200 attendees to more
than 15,000 at its peak, becoming the largest statewide
cross-disability event in the nation. The Family Café has always
believed that well-informed people make the best possible decisions for
themselves and their loved ones. The Annual Family Café provides the
opportunity to put that principle into action. The event brings together
thousands of Floridians with disabilities and their family members for
three-plus days of information, training, and networking opportunities.
The idea of
bringing together a wide range of information on
various disability-related topics is central to the event, which is designed to
afford families the opportunity to identify and take advantage of the content most
relevant to their specific needs in a supportive environment that
enables family-to-family connection. The core of the event is the
collection of hour-long individual educational breakout sessions that make up
the bulk of the agenda. In addition to individual breakout sessions, The Family
Café also hosts a series of three keynote events at The Annual Family Café to
highlight important topics that are relevant to people with disabilities and
their families and encourages dialogue and engagement between Floridians with
disabilities and the state agencies and elected officials that serve them by
hosting The Annual Summit on Disabilities. It also includes a large
Exhibit Hall with all manner of vendors, adaptive recreation activities,
self-advocate musical performances, and much, much more.
The Family
Café prides itself on supporting people with disabilities and their families as
they seek to build lives in the community every day of the year. As successful
as it is, The Annual Family Café is only one aspect of The Family Café’s
ongoing efforts to serve the disability community.
I couldn’t
put into words what I experienced at The Family Café any better than their
website did. I had attended the event before with my family, but this was the
first time I had presented on behalf of The Voiceless. We gave a presentation,
but we also had a table in the exhibit hall where we met about forty people who
expressed interest in our movement. Overall, the event was a resounding
success. We were even invited to speak in August at another event that The
Family Café puts on, The Florida Youth Summit. The Florida Youth Summit is an
event specifically designed for young people with disabilities in the state of Florida.
I can’t
speak for Michelle or Sam, but I am ecstatic to be given another excellent
opportunity to expand the reach of The Voiceless Minority and amplify our
voice. The event takes place on August 8th and 9th in
Orlando. Although we didn’t preview The Family Café itself, we will be writing
extensively about The Florida Youth Summit.
Until next
time, your friendly neighborhood, super
advocate,
and proud member of The Voiceless Minority,
Jay
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