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"We'd learned that, it's no surprise, people with disabilities were the most underserved group in the mortgage and lending industry." In this video, Deborah McCarty explains the launching of the Back Home in Indiana Alliance in 1997. The original…

In this black and white photograph, Theodore Helping of Indianapolis displays his leather portfolio that won a 1st Prize award at the 1933 State Fair. Fourteen year-old Theodore is wearing a tie and is in a wheelchair. He had been a patient in the…

"If you've ever seen the movie 'Forrest Gump', my mom was kind of like Forrest's mom." Andy Imlay was born with cerebral palsy in 1979, but his mom made sure he had the same opportunities as a child without disabilities. In the 1980s, Andy was…

Bettye Dunham got her start in the disability field in 1975. She was a support person to an Indiana University student needing assistance with note taking and studying. Bettye says, “The things I learned from Chris really endeared me to the field.”…

When Byron Smith was in sixth grade, his mother got a call from his teacher. She said, "Byron is out there on the monkey bars and he's sitting on the top bar and he's not hanging on with his hands." “My mom said, ‘Let him alone. Yes, he may fall.…

“I get the benefits of free movies. So it's a good all-around job,” explains Cori of her job at the movie theater. Cori works part-time taking tickets. When Cori was interviewed in 2013, she had been working at the movie theater for the past 13…

"I think it's extremely important that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities be a continued and increasingly strong voice in developmental disability issues of the day. And be in the rooms where decisions get made about funding,…

"We didn't want a nursing home saying, we are a Center for Independent Living, we're eligible for that money." David Nelson talks about the establishment of Centers for Independent Living (CILs) in Indiana. He describes a successful effort in Indiana…

"Even though professionals are very good and a lot of times very empathetic, it's still not the same as having lived it 24 hours a day." As both a parent of an adult daughter with intellectual/developmental disabilities and a retired disability…

“I found in going around the state and meeting with organizations, they didn't want to talk to one another," states Don Melloy of his experience in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in organizing Arc chapters in Indiana. The original focus of The Arc was…