Mission Yearbook: Tackling society’s systemic problems and finding solutions for people with disabilities
It’s not that the 39-year-old California native who grew up in the Chicago suburbs went out intentionally looking for community; she just immediately recognized when she had made that life-changing connection.
“At first I didn’t know anything about the disability rights movement,” said Sullivan, who lives with a disability. “I got involved with ADAPT Chicago by someone inviting me to go to one of their meetings because I was already at Access Living for another meeting and my ride didn’t show up. Since I was just going to wait around anyway, I thought, ‘Why not?’ So I went to the meeting, and I knew that these were the people that I had been looking for!”
Today, Sullivan not only serves on the board, but she is also co-coordinator of ADAPT Chicago, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that says it “organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.”
ACS was formed about 10 years ago when public aid offices were being closed and Medicaid benefits were being cut around the state. According to the group’s coordinator, Fran Tobin, and their published mission statement, ACS works to bring together people with disabilities, low-income families and front-line service workers “to resist threats, identify common ground and put the ‘human’ back in human services.”
“As justice, access and inclusion have been key issues in our society, the work of the Alliance for Community Services truly and profoundly illustrates the power of communities and their collective voices as they continue to proclaim economic justice in addressing intersecting issues such as health care, disability, collective bargaining, aging and education,” said the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson, coordinator of SDOP. “ACS’s work can truly be described as transformative power incarnate. Their emphasis on community ownership, organizing, empowerment and self-determination are all important values shared by the ministry of SDOP.”
The unique grassroots power at the heart of ACS’s work is made possible, in part, through a grant from SDOP, which is in turn supported by Presbyterians’ generous gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing.
For more than 75 years, its purpose of helping neighbors in need around the world remains constant, giving the PC(USA) and other Christian denominations a tangible way to share God’s love. In addition to SDOP, One Great Hour of Sharing also benefits the ministries of the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.
“Although there are a lot of benefits to working with SDOP, the centerpiece that makes the partnership important,” said Tobin, “is the moral centering that SDOP has of the lived experience of people experiencing poverty and oppression and engaging in making change in the world for their own world and the bigger world beyond us. And that’s really essential because there are a lot of groups that do funding and support that are less about that.”
In 2024, members of ACS met with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to address the inequities in the taxi industry.
“If we were able-bodied people, we could call a cab in two to three minutes,” she said, “but now we’re waiting for an hour in certain places, and that’s not right. The mayor agreed, and he said that we need to look for ways to incentivize the cabs to take more wheelchair riders.”
Community organizing is just what Sullivan will continue to do.
“Because I am completely disabled, I consider my job to be doing the stuff I do with the Alliance and ADAPT Chicago,” she said. “We’re not huddled in the corners and shriveling away from problems. We are attacking these problems and finding solutions. That’s what we do.”
Andrew Peterson, Mission Associate, Office of Public Witness, Interim Unified Agency Jason Peterson, Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Let us pray:
Gracious and merciful God, open our minds and hearts to see your presence in all people, that we might provide welcome and room for growth to all. Amen.
