With Gratitude

(Local View from 4'2, Lake County Press, May 1, 2026)

Starting from a place of gratitude.

First I need to thank Kitty Mayo, our fearless editor, and you the readers for embracing my guest writer, Jaime Head-MacAlister. Jaime is not only the president of Above & Beyond With U but she is my dear friend from childhood and my disability mentor. So thank you for all of your wonderful feedback on her writings here.

This past month has been full of really cool work, community events, leadership growth and acknowledgements. Through my consulting and speaking work, I have really enjoyed getting to know more local businesses and industries. It is so fun connecting folks to create meaningful intersectional work and developing deeper community relationships.

Northspan has been hosting six cohort meetings centering around welcoming and belonging communities. It has been a growing experience learning new soft skills in listening, respectful dialog, and deciding on a capstone community project to apply all that we have learned together to benefit our community. More details on these great events as we develop them.

I also had the great opportunity to go to Gaelynn Lea’s opening book tour stop at Zeitgeist. Gaelynn is an amazing song writer, fiddle player, singer, disability advocate, friend, and now a published author from Duluth. Her memoir, “It Wasn’t Meant To Be Perfect” released on April 14, 2026. This book is a must read as Gaelynn has you laughing and crying all in the same chapter. The night at Zeitgeist was charming and real, just like Gaelynn. She did a book chat with two friends interviewing her not just about her book but also about current issues facing the disability community. Then Gaelynn blessed the audience with a short concert of some of her most well known songs as well as some of her early work that shaped who she is today. She unexpectedly gave a shout out to Above & Beyond With U and the work we are doing here on the Shore. This is high praise and means a lot to me and my board. We are all interdependent and we need the support and encouragement from each other. Thanks, Gaelynn!

I also had the privilege of attending the Lake County Chamber of Commerce Spring Gala. This was my first time attending and what a special night it was at Superior Shores in their newly renovated ballroom. Thank you to everyone who nominated and voted for me to be the 2026 Volunteer of the Year. It is a humbling award to receive from you all. It takes us all to make our communities and region a better place. My passion is creating spaces and places that are safe, accessible, and inclusive for everyone from robotics kids to disabled folks and everyone in between. A lot of work has been done with even more to continue doing.

Our next goal to tackle as a community is creating event spaces that are accessible for all of our community’s needs. We currently struggle to have spaces that have accessible paved parking with accessible access aisles or hard surface boulevards. We also struggle with having accessible bathrooms that meet all the basic human needs in those spaces- just adding grab bars doesn’t cut it anymore- actually this approach never worked. Accessible seating with companion seats is also a concern from small town events to large concert settings. We also struggle with having good sound amplification and all folks realizing that even if you have a loud voice, you still need to provide the amplification and clarity for people with hearing needs. We also need ramps and stairs with handrails to all stages. Another huge concern I have recently been encountering is the lack of emergency plans at events around people with disabilities.

Thanks to Kitty and a team of leaders we had a great Survive This! Event at THHS. There are so many different types of emergencies that affect our county and region.  Being prepared is the key to success and practicing the plans and protocols is what makes us safe- spoken from a former public school educator and the daughter of a former local firefighter. There are just some things that are hardwired in us. I look forward to the conversations, planning, implementation, and promotion around these topics in coming months and years. We all do better when we all do better.