"Rolling, Rolling, Rolling!"

I have had the most wonderful work experience today. One of the great things about working at a public television station is connecting with your community, and today we started a venture with community partners that I’m greatly looking forward to.

It’s called “Rolling.” “Rolling” is a television program produced by WNET/New York (you can view the program online here. http://www.thirteen.org/rolling/ It focuses on wheelchair use.)

WKAR recently received a grant to have a community event related to wheelchair use in conjunction with the program, and today I met with our community partners to get started.

Our event will feature a resource room with materials, possibly demonstrations from various agencies and organizations who deal with the special needs community, focusing on (but not limited to) wheelchair users and those who are part of their lives (families, teachers, caregivers, and really when you get right down to it, the general community at large).

We’ll also have a program with two nationally recognized speakers, Judy Winter (she’s on my link site on this blog) and Al Swain, who is not only a wheelchair user, but blind as well, so he’s really experienced a great deal related to the topic. The program will also include young students of the Music Therapy Program at Michigan State University and of course a preview of the documentary. We may be able to have the filmmakers attend.

I’m working with a great team of folks representing some terrific organizations in our area. I’ll post more about this soon, including links to our partners. You may well know someone who could benefit from info on their sites (particularly the resources from the Center for Educational Networking, which has some great online publications -- http://www.cenmi.org/).

Some days you just have a good work day. Today was one of them!