National Leadership Program, Spring 2018
Sarah Bram
Sarah Bram was a Communications Fellow in the National Leadership Program at RespectAbility. Bram graduated from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania in December 2016 with a degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences and a minor in Special Education. The doctors told her parents when she was born that she would never talk. Ironically, speech therapy was the only therapy that she never needed. Later on, that inspired her to study speech pathology to give others like her a “voice.”
As a person with cerebral palsy, she deals with challenges every moment of every day. She has been a pathfinder all of her life. She was the only person in a wheelchair in grade school, the first person in two decades at her high school in a wheelchair and the first person at her camp in a wheelchair, paving the road for those after her.
Bram is passionate about nonprofit organizations. She was inspired to work for a nonprofit herself after getting involved with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) in 2006. This organization provides highly trained service dogs to those with disabilities. As her Bat Mitzvah project, she fundraised for CCI and attended weekly local training classes for puppy raisers to help the dogs get used to wheelchairs and walkers. More than ten years later, Bram has applied for a service dog and continues to fundraise and volunteer with CCI.
As a Communications Fellow with RespectAbility, Bram learned more about social media management for nonprofit organizations. She is considering graduate school in speech-language pathology or assistive technology and wants to teach those who cannot speak to speak freely.
