National Leadership Program, Fall 2022
McKenzie Stribich
McKenzie Stribich [she (preferred)/they (used sometimes)] was a Faith Inclusion and Belonging Fellow in RespectAbility’s National Leadership Program for Fall 2022. RespectAbility is a national nonprofit organization fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities so that people with disabilities can fully participate in all aspects of community.
Stribich is cis, queer/gay, neurodivergent, and physically disabled, and walks with forearm crutches. She was born and raised in Long Beach, California, where she lives with her one-eyed cat, Diamond. She holds a BFA in photography from California State University, Long Beach, and works as a freelance Technical Writer and Editor in business immigration law. She’s rediscovering her dormant love of reading (often a struggle because of her ADHD), and is a lover of music and swimming. She is a progressive Episcopalian Christian who loves learning and understanding how things work.
McKenzie is very involved in many facets of church life in their Long Beach church, and has grown progressively more invested in social justice during their near-decade in the Episcopal church. Her activism, largely focused on issues of disability access, has been birthed from the complexities of her personal experience—experience which led her priest to ask her help in leading her parish into community-based relational organizing efforts spearheaded by an LA-County-wide interfaith organization. McKenzie was told about the National Leadership Program by one of her co-conspirators in the organization, and it sounded like a position perfectly aligned with her passion for disability justice in the church.
More recently, McKenzie has become fascinated by the intersection of disability and queerness and hopes to continue exploring the implications of such intersections. She might want to be a librarian someday but isn’t quite sure yet. Whatever she decides, she’s looking forward to exploring the directions in which her Fellowship may lead her.
