HELP WANTED

Disability Employment Awareness Month is celebrated nationally during the month of October.

In nineteen forty-five, Congress passed a law making the first week in October "National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week." In nineteen sixty-two, 

Congress dropped the word physically from the name of the law so that people with all types of disabilities could be included. In nineteen eighty-eight, the name was changed to its current one, and the week was expanded to a month. This year's theme is "Because We Are EQUAL to the Task.'

Those of us with disabilities, who are able to work,  want to work.  We want to contribute to society. We want to feel good about ourselves.  We want to know that we are making a difference. Our skills and ideas need to be utilized in the workplace.

 All it takes is for employers to see past a person's disability and give them a chance to prove themselves. It also takes a willingness on the part of an employer to make the "reasonable accommodations", to enable a person with a disability  to do their job effectively  

The staff at Meramec gave me a chance.  I developed a class.  The college's continuing education department saw how my class could be an asset to the department's curriculum. I taught that software class, part-time, for sixteen years.

I encourage employers to give a person with a disability a chance. They will work hard.  They will be one of your best employees.

I hope that someday the need for a month devoted to motivating employers and making them aware of the ways of hiring someone with a disability could be an asset to their company, will be a thing of the past. That we'll all be looked on as equals and be hired because we're the best person for the job.