“There is something everyone can do to be a helper, even just a simple text to connect with others can be so uplifting! During this crisis it is so nice to be helping others.”

– Tonya Koslo

Tonya Koslo is the Director of Finance and Administration at RespectAbility. An experienced administrator whose skills include database management, state charitable registrations, computers, billing, legal requirements of human resource administration, websites and support services, she has helped RespectAbility since day 1 of our organization. This includes welcoming and onboarding each member of our staff and all of our National Leadership Fellows, a team of leaders with disabilities and strong allies who are working to fight stigmas and advance opportunities for people with disabilities.

Prior to joining RespectAbility, Koslo worked for Laszlo and Associates as the Executive Assistant and Office Manager and for eleven years in various capacities for the Mayor, Town Board and Town Administrator Biltmore Forest, North Carolina. In her free time, she volunteers at her church, is the president of her homeowner’s association and is active in local adoption groups. A cancer survivor, she knows the stress and risk that the COVID-19 crisis puts on people with underlying medical conditions.

With the recent COVID-19 crisis, Koslo spent day and night learning about how RespectAbility can stay afloat financially as demands for our work increased and fundraising could dry up. This included applying for the SBA PPP loan. She not only completed our paperwork; she has helped several other nonprofits get on the right track so they could also apply for the loans.  While no groups have gotten a response yet to their loan applications, success in this project can mean eight weeks of free payroll for a nonprofit organization. Given the significant increase in demands for the work of groups that serve at-risk populations during this economic and public health crisis, funding like this can be a game-changer.

In addition to helping RespectAbility and other nonprofits, during her spare time, Koslo is making masks in conjunction with her husband Tim and one of his co-workers.  Tim works for Defense Intelligence Agency and uses a computer program to cut materials.  His coworker, Doug, has a 3-D printer at his home and makes the plastic head-straps for them. Koslo sews the materials together.  They are all using different skills to help as best as they can during this crisis.  Meanwhile, their fabulous two teen daughters are keeping up with their studies online and are assisting others online.  One of them is an award-winning artist and the other is an award-winning student architect. Additionally, as helping people runs in the family, their youngest is tutoring middle school Algebra for neighborhood kids.

RespectAbility loves all our staff, board and volunteers! We hope this short piece helps you get to know just one of our team members. We hope that you and yours are safe and healthy at this time.

Washington, D.C., April 8 – As lawmakers continue to work around the clock during this critical time, RespectAbility acknowledges the importance of ensuring people with disabilities are fully included in life-saving efforts.

“The RespectAbility team has been very hard hit,” said the organization’s President Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi. “Our IT consultant died last week, and our immediate past chairman has COVID-19, as do two other members of our extended team. Therefore, these issues are very personal to us and are working hard to get journalists and leaders the facts and sources they need so that policy makers and the public understand both the stakes and solutions to solving this shared crisis.”

People with disabilities are exceptionally vulnerable to the potentially life-threatening impacts of the virus and face even greater challenges than the general public in this pandemic. Statistically, one-in-five people has a disability. From food insecurity and access to healthcare/testing to switching to telework and life-or-death medical decisions, people with disabilities are impacted by these events. This crisis demands leadership at every level of government. [continue reading…]

Traditionally, during the Passover seder, we ask four questions, starting with the well-known refrain “mah nishtanah ha’layla ha’zeh mi’kol ha’leylot: why is this night different from all other nights?” This year, there are far more than the traditional four answers to this query.

We are, right now, living in a time of challenge and hardship, a new “mitzraym” or narrow place for all of us, with a deliverance that will come not just before dinner served, but at an uncertain time in the future. We don’t know when we will be fully free of coronavirus. We do know that we can each be a part of the redemption of each other’s challenges, especially those faced by people with disabilities, and by others who, due to income or otherwise, lack adequate housing and food. It is a time when our global community, physically distant, is called to come together in spirit, to unify in an expression of our gratitude for what we have, and to support those who need it most. [continue reading…]

With Passover right around the corner, we would normally be planning on gathering around the table for a Seder with our loved ones. We read from our Haggadah, celebrate, and give thanks for the liberation of our people from oppression. This gratitude might feel difficult, however, with the current COVID-19 plague looming overhead. Instead of being brought together, we are embracing “social distancing.” The isolation becomes its own oppression, making many search for the freedom of celebrating the holiday with the community.

JOIN US!

To make Passover accessible to people with disabilities, RespectAbility along with partner organizations is creating a virtual Kehila (Community) specifically geared toward people with intellectual disabilities. This will kick-off with a tailored Passover Seder which will be a fun, engaging, and informative time for all involved. The Seder will take place on Monday, April 13, 2020, at 7:00pm Eastern time, or 4:00pm Pacific time. All are welcome and you can join this Seder by clicking here to register. We at RespectAbility want to wish you all a wonderful Pesach and look forward to seeing you all on Monday the 13th. [continue reading…]

FANCY NANCY – “Nancy’s New Friend” – Nancy learns about autism when she befriends Lionel’s favorite cousin Sean. This episode of “Fancy Nancy” airs Thursday, April 2 (8:00-8:30 A.M. EDT) on Disney Channel. (Disney Junior)

Los Angeles, California, April 1 – With one-in-five people having a disability in the U.S. today, the lack of representation – just 3.1 percent on primetime television and even less in children’s television (less than one percent) – means that millions of people are unable to see themselves in media today. Disney Junior’s Fancy Nancy is hoping to buck that trend in a new episode, “Nancy’s New Friend.” Nancy is excited to meet her friend Lionel’s favorite cousin Sean, who is on the Autism spectrum. But Nancy does not understand why Sean does not respond to him and needs to learn how to connect with Sean in a different way than she does with other friends.

“We hope this episode will help our viewers understand that there are sensitivities to be mindful of when engaging with someone who has autism,” said Fancy Nancy co-producer/head writer, Krista Tucker. “People with autism may act in ways we feel are different, and that’s okay—they’re just being who they are. In a world where so many children interact with kids who have autism, this kind of understanding creates compassion, tolerance and friendship. Most importantly, it creates a world that is kind and accepting of all of us.”

The episode, which airs on Thursday, April 2 at 8:00 a.m. ET, is timed to celebrate World Autism Awareness Day. [continue reading…]

Film will premiere as the Opening Night selection of The ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York and will be shown virtually on March 31, 2020, followed by a Q&A.

New York City, March 31 – Have you ever been online, just aimlessly scrolling through the web and found an article that makes a point you’ve been trying to get across for years, but have never been able to express: one of the moments where you can’t help but to exclaim that “they put it into words”? When it comes to the topic of disability representation in mainstream cinema, Code of the Freaks, directed by Salome Chasnoff, does just that, except for instead of being an 800-word opinion piece, it’s a brilliant, clever and expertly-crafted, hour-ish long film.

Touting a comedic disclaimer that “no people with disabilities were harmed in the making of this film,” Code opens with clips from the 1392 movie Freaks – from which it draws its name – and uses these examples as a jumping-off point for the discussion to come on disability representation in mainstream cinema. It takes clips from movies that include characters with disabilities and picks apart the way those characters, their stories and the situations are portrayed – including what the directors and writers got right, if anything, and what they did terribly (in most instances) wrong. It brings with it an important message in the fact that film, in many ways, functions as an educational medium – insofar as introducing people to experiences they might be unfamiliar with – meaning that what they ‘teach’ goes a lot further and deeper than one might think.

[continue reading…]

Washington, D.C., March 27 – President Trump signed into law today the $2 trillion-dollar emergency stimulus aimed at propping up the economy during the current crisis. This law is unprecedented in its scope and is meant to help our nation respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even now, government agencies are going to work to implement the new law.

Millions of Americans living with disabilities are wondering what this new law means for them and whether they will see any benefit. The short answer is yes, but how far the law will go to help people with disabilities who are uniquely at-risk to the impact of the virus remains an open question. [continue reading…]

Lily Coltoff

Erdenheim, Pa., Mar. 27 – As I sit in my childhood home outside of Philadelphia in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, now almost two weeks after having been uprooted from my “new” life I was starting in DC, it seems only natural that my mind should wander to happier, “easier” times – many of which only happened one month ago. Four weeks ago, COVID-19 was just coming on our radar, having had only just jumped from the international pages to the bottom of the front page. My mind was elsewhere – primarily focused on Jewish disability advocacy.

It’s strange to think that, right now, I’m working in a field that, only a few short years ago, I had absolutely no idea existed. [continue reading…]

Washington, D.C., March 26 – Last night Senate leaders voted unanimously to move forward on the $2 trillion-dollar emergency stimulus bill meant to help our nation respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill, originally called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), now goes to the House of Representatives for a vote. If passed, then it will go to the President’s desk to become law.

You can read more about the bill on the Senate Appropriations Committee website HERE.

However, what does this mean for the millions of Americans living with disabilities? What provisions will specifically impact or help the disability community? What help is there for actual people with disabilities who are uniquely at-risk to the impact of the virus?

RespectAbility and a host of other disability advocacy organizations have been working around the clock to answer these questions for the past several days. Those that lobby have been fighting hard to include key provisions into the law that will help the more than 56 million Americans with disabilities. [continue reading…]