Our project will enable the disability communities that have worked tirelessly for independence and civil rights to access their own history, and it will promote research and education about their history. We are seeking funds to preserve and further develop the Disability History Museum (DHM: https://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/index.html) an extraordinary online resource focused on the history of disability and disability rights. Founded in 2000, the DHM serves K-12 educators, students, researchers, and the public. 100,000 thousand unique visitors use it annually. Laurie Block, the director of Straight Ahead Pictures (SAP), the non-profit/501c3 organization that created the DHM, is retiring. To ensure that the DHM not only survives, but reaches its full potential, the Board of SAP has sought and found a partner with the capacity to manage and expand the DHM. The Viscardi Center (TVC) on Long Island (see https://viscardicenter.org), a non-profit institution that educates, employs, and empowers children, adults, and veterans with disabilities so that they can become economically secure and fulfilled members of society, has enthusiastically agreed to acquire the DHM.
TVC will be opening an onsite bricks and mortar museum on the history of disability (https://museumofdisability.org/) on February 17. The museum houses over 8,000 artifacts. The acquisition of the DHM, a nationally focused digital museum site with library, education, and exhibition capacities, will provide Viscardi’s Museum of Disability History with the ability to reach national and international audiences far beyond its walls. Viscardi will maintain and expand the DHM and continue the development of the DHM’s curriculum materials for K-12 students “We are thrilled by this opportunity!” writes Chris Rosa, President of TVC.

What our grantee: The grant from the Awesome Foundation will facilitate the transfer of the online Disability History Museum (DHM) to The Viscardi Center (TVC) on Long Island, which will not only sustain it, but seek to develop it to its full potential. As Chris Rosa, President of TVC, writes: “The addition of the digital resources of the DHM to our new museum will enable us to reach audiences far beyond the walls of our onsite museum. We are thrilled by this opportunity!”