Page 28 - Sonoma County Gazette MARCH 2020
P. 28

How easily can older adults and residents with disabilities
get around in Sonoma County? How often do they forgo important trips because they lack transportation? What are the local transportation challenges, successes, and gaps in services?
Crip Camp, a documentary directed by Nicole Newnham and JimLeBrecht, premiered the first night of the Sundance Film Festival this January. Crip Camp, "not about overcoming, but becoming” was produced with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions and will be on Netflix starting March 25th.
Older adults age 60+ and residents with disabilities are invited to discuss these questions and share their experiences at upcoming meetings hosted by the Sonoma County Area Agency on Aging (AAA):
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Ninety-four of the photographs taken by HolLynn D'Lil of
Graton during the 1977 504 Demonstrations featured
Documentary Crip Camp features Activist & Photographer HolLynnD’Lil
   How to Improve County Transportation Older Adults and Residents with Disabilities Invited to Discuss How to Improve County Transportation
  Wed, March 25, 1:30-3:30 p.m., Rohnert Park Senior Center, 6800 Hunter Drive, Rohnert Park Thur, March 26, 10 a.m.-noon, RRA/West County Senior Resource Center,
in her book Becoming
Real in 24 Days are in the film. Becoming Real in 24 Days is about the take-over
of the fourth floor of the San Francisco Federal building for three and a half weeks with concurrent demonstrations in D.C and in eight other cities across the country.
 15010 Armstrong Woods Road, Guerneville
The community’s input
will become part of the Sonoma County Connected Communities Transportation Study. To register, call (707) 565-5903 or email aaa@schsd.org. For future discussion group dates, visit the Sonoma County Area Agency on Aging website.
The long but
successful battle
achieved the first
F Fe e d d e e r r a a l l l l a aw w t t o o p p r r o o t t e e c c t t p p e e o o p p l l e e
with disabilities against discrimination.
“In the 2016-2020 AAA Community
Report, 57% of Sonoma County older adults and persons with disabilities stated they are concerned about access to local transportation,” says County of Sonoma Adult and Aging Division Director Paul Dunaway. “It’s vital to get input from older adults and people with disabilities to plan a transportation system that makes it easier to get to health appointments, the grocery store, and community events. Better transportation systems also allow better access to job options and financial opportunities for all residents.”
From January-March 2020, the AAA will host several discussion groups throughout the County under a grant from the state Department of Transportation, Caltrans, to study how well local transportation systems serve older adults age 60+ and residents with disabilities.
At stake were issues like the proposal for segregated schools for students with disabilities, which the protestors' determination successfully stopped. The success of the 1977 504 Demonstrations greatly shaped the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which was signed into law in 1990.
 HolLynn was also interviewed for the film along with other disability rights advocates. Sara Bolder, the producer wrote that HolLynn's participation in the film "made it clear that her story of becoming disabled and having the same prejudices as everyone else gives people without disabilities permission to acknowledge their own biases. That’s so important to the telling of the story of the 504. Really crucial."
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Mostly a Bay Area production, others included in the film are Jim LeBrecht, Lionel Je' Woodyard, Joseph O'Conor, Ann Cupolo Freeman, Denise Sherer Jacobson, Judith Heumann, Neil Jacobson, Sheldon Koy, Dr. William Bronston, Corbett O'Toole, Dennis Billups, Evan White and Emily Hofmann.
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