1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE Tuesdays at the Capitol Minnesota Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Remote CART April 21, 2020 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. * * * * * This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event. * * * * * CART Provided by Jayne Carriker, RPR, CRR, CRC Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com 2 [This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event.] >> Good morning, everyone. We're going to start in a few minutes. We're just going to wait for a few other people to join. >> Let me get back to you on that. All right. I want to just take a minute to grab a shoutout box or the virtual shoutout, that's just something I want to figure out a way that maybe we can -- I guess I can put it on the agenda. >> Hi, Jane. >> Hi. I couldn't find the Zoom. 3 I texted you. >> So sorry. >> No, that's okay. I just kept digging through my e-mails until I found it. Jillian, I am doing -- the telling our story chopped out of our PowerPoint, so I included what you did a couple weeks ago, if you just want to review it really quick when we get to those slides. Unless you want me to. >> Yeah, I can pop in and do that. >> Thank you. We just decided it this morning, Bridget and I. >> I think we can go ahead and get started, and if people join, they join. So first thank you to anyone who hasn't been on a virtual Tuesday at a capitol before. Things work a little differently obviously so the first thing we ask is that if you can mute your microphones, that would be great. If we have any problems, we can mute it for you as well. We also have captioning available, so at the bottom of your screen if you hit closed caption and then show subtitles, you will have subtitles at the bottom of your screen as well. So today we're going to be talking about telling your 4 story and it's something that many people have done before but it definitely looks a little different these days now that we're not meeting with our representatives and senators in person, rather more virtually, and so Jean and Jillian from awesome will be sharing a little bit on how to tell your story but first I'll pass it along to Bill from MNCCD to give a legislative update on behalf of MNCCD. >> Okay, can folks hear me? Good. Great. Well, as the legislature is operating differently, as we all are these days, but they have been working holding more and more hearings virtually, and you can watch those, they're live streaming in the house and senate websites as well as public television. Channels pick up the house and senate coverage. It can only hold I believe three at a time hearings, that is, in the house, and -- two in the house and one in the senate because they only have that many channels to stream. So it's not quite a full calendar but it's certainly a lot more than we saw several weeks ago. We've been working hard lobbying virtually legislators on a lot of issues that we're having around PCAs' pay 5 benefits, disabled folks in the community, having trouble with the usual caregivers and Bridget sent out an e-mail to everyone yesterday on baffle of MNCCD to forward your stories. There's a Google sheet link there or you can e-mail directly your personal stories about difficulties you're having during this different time. The legislature is going to continue to meet virtually. It's not quite as robust obviously as normal. Most of the legislation that is being taken up, which isn't say lot, all seems to be related to the pandemic emergency, even the house property tax committee met yesterday, and I saw that they had a couple of bills and I tuned in and I was thinking, oh, maybe we're doing something that's not related to the emergency. Well, it was. They were giving local government authority to change how they do things around property tax, spending and collections, so even that was not what I hoped it would be. There is some speculation that the -- they will have some special sessions to take up some legislation that's more normal maybe later into the spring early summer, but everything is kind of day to day, at best week to week. 6 So does anyone have any questions? >> Yes, at our self-advocacy meeting, this is Heidi Meyer. >> Hi, Heidi. >> Our self-advocacy meeting is the ARC of Minnesota, the ARC Minnesota. We met and one of the things we -- and I'm on the transportation for the disabled for MNCCD. We want to know if we are getting the same respect, you know, because we want us to use the back door of the bus to get out and some of us with walkers and certain types of disability can't narrow down that thing and we want to know if we get the same respect with people with wheelchairs because they should be going out the front door and are they using the ADA. That was the big topic towards the end of our meeting and the other topic was brought up at our last Tuesday at the capitol is how we treat people in the community. From what I'm hearing we get the raw end of the bargain because everything I've seen about COVID-19 is all about the elderly and not about people with disabilities and we're not really included in there when it comes to certain issues, so it's been coming kind of hard to take care of ourselves because some of us are able to go out and others are glued to their apartment or group home, 7 so that was our big topic at our last meeting. >> You know, I hadn't heard all of that detail on those transportation issues. Is this Metro Mobility that's asking you to go through the back door? >> No, this is the regular city bus. >> Metro transit? >> Yep. If you get their e-mails about staying -- like don't ride the light rail if you can avoid it, you know? Don't do this, don't do that, all that but then the disability community, our group is asking how does it work if we have to use the back door and we can't and also if your disability doesn't allow you to push the door open correctly because you don't have enough strength, then you're kind of screwed. So they were asking really good questions and it's the same thing the tack that I'm a part of under Minnesota DCD is asking when it comes to using the handicapped seats because we have a big issue on that. So now this came along and we're wondering if we get the same respect. So that's one. And then others in group homes and out in the community who can be independent and who can't. 8 That was the other thing we talked about, you know, having our rights because we're not being treated like some of our friends are that can just walk out the door and have say life. >> Yeah. >> So that's what we talked about. I wanted to bring that up. >> Yeah, no, thanks, Heidi. Those are really important questions and concerns. I think Bridget, if we're taking some notes, we'll want to put that on our to-do list at our MNCCD public policy committee meeting. That's tomorrow, right? Yeah, today is Tuesday. That's on Wednesday. So let's put that on our agenda and talk about that and see if we can reach out to -- well, let retransit and met council. >> Yes, if you can one of you guys because I'm supposed to report back to our meeting next month. If someone can e-mail me these questions because maybe you'll get bigger because you're behind me and you can use my name and they can talk to me. However we can connect, I will be more than willing because we talk about this at our meetings all the time 9 down where Metro Mobility is in St. Paul, you know, where the council has their meetings, and it's just an ongoing -- now it's the sicknesses, we're wondering if we still have rights. >> No, that's a question a lot of people are asking. You know, our communication subcommittee is trying to work on people getting their stories out through letters to the editor, and really only three, four sentences on like this transportation topic, that's really important, you know. Send that to the Star Tribune, to the Pioneer Press and your ARC group that's something they can do too because we need to get these issues out and that's a really easy way to get it out. Obviously the newspapers are really focused on -- and the news media generally these kind of stories, I think -- >> The reason it got brought up because she has to start going grocery shopping and she hasn't used the bus and I get their e-mails but it has not once talked about the disabled. We're treated like we're just anybody, so we don't know all the ins and outs. We were told only ten people on the bus because it makes it hard where I live because I'm in between this and 10 that so I may have to wait a couple of times. And then from there how do we use the bus correctly if our disability doesn't allow us. I just sit in the front and I get off the front and I can make it all work. And now they're demanding everybody go to the back door and you have to have some push and if you know some of our people in the community, they don't have the strength to do that in a timely manner, so and also scooters and all the other things they use to help them with their disability may not go down the aisle very well. I just wanted to throw that out because that was a hot topic besides you shouldn't glue us to our homes or a group homes. So hot topics. So get back to me because I need to report next month. >> Yeah, we'll definitely bring it up with our policy committee and it kind of leads us into our today's program with Jean and Jillian about talking about your story and by the end of this, Heidi, you might have a better idea about what to write about. I'll pass it along to Jean right now to start talking about how to tell your story. >> I don't know if we can hear you, Jean. 11 >> Can you hear me now? >> I can. Everyone else? >> I didn't unmute. Bridget, are we putting up the share -- the PowerPoint? Or you just want me to talk? Sorry. I'm trying to find my stuff. There we go. Shoot. There it is. Perfect. >> We can see it. >> Okay. Good. I usually do this verbally at the last minute when we're at our live Tuesdays, but now you can see the PowerPoint that I've always worked from, so we talk about the power of advocacy and so we're going to talk about why we tell our stories, how do we do it, when do we do it, what's our issue, and again how to do it. I guess I thought it was important I put it in there twice. So next slide. And this will be Jillian. 12 She did this a couple weeks ago but I think it warrants repeat this issue doesn't help me so why should I care. Take it away, Jillian. >> Hey, everyone. Thanks for, tuning in today. This issue doesn't impact me, why should I care? This is something I hear way way too often in our community. That's kind of why I wanted to talk about it. I always start with this slide, we're all in this together. A little throw back to high school musical there. But it's the idea of that bigger picture that even though we all have very different needs, we all have very different disabilities, we all have very different experiences with our disabilities, even two people within the same diagnosis can have very different experiences. We're still all in this together. Can we bump slides, Bridget. A lot of times I think we don't realize that some of those bigger pictures for the disability movement is that -- a lot of the smaller steps that look like they're only going to benefit one part of our community can actually be part of a bigger plan and there can be a 13 lot of steps to bigger change. Sometimes we have to start with a small goal, like a great example of this is the autism training for law enforcement. Yeah, it would be really, really great for us to have law enforcement trained about every disability and how to help every single person. But to get the law enforcement communities to realize that this is something that's really value that having that specialized training is going to make a difference in how they do their jobs, we -- it's a lot easier to start with a smaller idea for them like saying, hey, let's try it on one community. Sometimes this is because it's a new idea. Sometimes it's because of budget reasons. But often it's going to be because it's a lot easier to convince lawmakers to change things a little bits at a time. So for that example we started with the autism community because the autism community has a really, really high rate of challenging interactions with law enforcement so we know we have a really good reason to say, hey, you should do this, and we can use that change as a platform to expand the disability awareness training that law enforcement receive after we get them to adopt this 14 based on really heavy statistics. So then after we make that first change, we can use the next session to build on that goal and make a bigger change. So we can go back and say, yeah, now that all the law enforcement are trained in autism and we see this has reduced like their emergency transfer calls by 60%, this is how being trained on another disability could increase that cost savings and improve how they do their jobs even more. Does that make sense? Awesome. Next slide. So within those, this one I changed this for the conference. So sometimes talking to a lawmaker about a disability issue that doesn't directly affect your life but may affect other people in the community, we can gain awareness for our cause as well. To be able to go in and say, hey, I have several friends who are on the autism spectrum and this is how this affects them, or I have several people that I know that have traumatic brain injuries and this is how this affects them even though it's different from how I've talked to you about how things affect me. 15 It gives legislators a chance to learn about different disability groups and see that our needs are different but that we all still have unique needs because we're living with disabilities, and that they need to learn to listen to all people with disabilities, but also when they're creating policy and when they're creating programs and when they're structuring things within DHS or health and human services or special education it really educates them about the need for flexibility, that they can't write a policy that says this is how we're going to do this with every single person with disabilities because we're all very different and we have unique needs so when we share with them about things that aren't just our own, we get to kind of expand on that for them. And also the last one you may need help too. Not every bill that gets put out there for the disability community will improve your life directly, and legislation that helps you won't always help everyone else, but we want to support each other to improve all of our lives and we can show unitity by supporting things that support others in our community. For example, I spend a lot of time professionally and personally advocating for Medicaid and waivers and TEFRA and special education. 16 I spend a lot of time talking to people about improving services for Metro Mobility. That also doesn't affect me, but I know that when my community is doing better we all do better together, and I want what's best for all the people in my community even if it's not something I access or do directly. So it's nice to know then that when I have something, a bill that may impact me directly as part of my community it's helpful to know that other people in my community that may not be directly impacted by that bill are also going to show support and also ask their legislators to show support for that and know that I'm going to do the same thing in return. Does that all make sense? Does anybody have any questions? >> This is Heidi. I just wanted to say this is really good presentation and the pictures work really well to tell the story, so you could take this presentation and send it to someone else and they can tell their -- like we could do this at the ARC self advocacy meeting. This would be great, you know. It was really well done. >> Thanks, Heidi. Okay. 17 So we're all really busy working from home and home schooling kids and doing all kinds of other things trying to get toilet paper, so maybe we think we're too busy for advocacy, but that's not true. It doesn't need to take a lot of time. Next. With 15 minutes you can find out who your policymakers are and put the information somewhere where you'll see it and have it for every time you want to contact them. You can read or respond to an action alert from CCD with an e-mail or a phone call. And you can forward it once you've done that to your families and friends so they can respond to the issue as well. And then you can make a future appointment or even maybe a virtual appointment with your legislator. And if you have an hour or two, then you can write your personal story, and you can also do some more research on a topic that affects your life so then you'll be able to speak with more authority so this is what Heidi has been doing with the transportation issue. She's looking at what are there rules, how are they making exceptions for the disability community so you can take some time and you can do that research. You can do what you're all doing today, phone into a 18 call to hear and respond to issues or to learn more about how you can make a difference. You can start looking up how to register to vote, and you can research candidates for the upcoming election. So we talk a lot about telling your stories, but how do we do that? What do we include? So you want to start with what diagnoses and challenges you or your loved one or if you work in the field, your client, your constituents if you work for an organization or your members I should say if you work for an organization. So what are the diagnoses and challenges we're hearing about. Because policies want to make -- know what makes you unique. They want to hear what they do affects your life. You want to talk about what city you live in and if it's relevant what setting, if you're talking about an issue about housing, are you living in your parents' home and you want to live on your own, so you want to talk about where you are in relation to your story but also in relationship to your legislators because they want to know if you're their constituent, do you live in their district, do you live in their state or county. 19 I have actually written to my son's legislators using David's story. He lives many Boston and I just put his identifying information as David's brother and his address in Boston and so I'm sharing David's story all over the country sometimes. Which supports do you receive and how frequently are those supports provided, and what positive differences do those supports make. So will when we're looking at things like we can talk about Heidi's issue again, transportation. Okay. I take the bus and it's hard for me to go to the back of the bus. I need to go to the front, and this is why, and if I can go to the front, it makes me more likely to be able to run my errands myself. How do your services and supports give you greater control over your life. Okay, with the coronavirus, COVID-19, this is something where we all feel like we've really lost control, and so you want to know what services, what supports may give you greater control over your life, what lets you choose what works for you because if it works better for you, chances are it's more cost effective, and so when 20 policymakers are making decisions and passing legislation and particularly allocating funding, they want to know how that is going to make a difference in your life. And if your supports have been cut or as we've been talking about with PCA right now, we're having harder and harder time getting PCAs into the homes of those who need them, so what's happening to you because of that and what are you afraid might happen if something doesn't change, so we know there are people who are really worried about going into larger facilities, nursing homes or hospitals if they can't get the care in their home and policymakers need to hear about that. This often is important, this next issue what out-of-pocket expenses do you or your family members pay over and above what you spend on others in your household. This question is in here because often there are families who have children with disabilities and people say, they're your kids, why can't you take care of them. So people really need to know how much more expensive it sometimes is to pay for the services, supports, accommodations, assistive technology that we need so that the knee jerk answer is -- isn't that your responsibility and they need to understand what you do 21 that's over and above a typical family. And then I told you to include all of that, but we also want to keep your story short. If we can keep it to one page, that would be great. If you print your story, include a photo of the person with the disability or your family or your client if you're working with people because pictures say a thousand words and we know that when we've made posters at the capitol. Okay. So we aren't there now and we can't make our posters and display them but we sure can attach some pictures to some letters or documents. And then we want to maintain a relationship. If you don't already have a relationship with your legislator, if they don't know who you are by name or by sight, you can start to build that, so you can write a thank you note, if you've met with your legislators or if they attended a town hall forum or to follow up on some policy that they've implemented. This is a good time for Governor Walz to hear where the stay at home orders are important to us because he's certainly hearing from people that don't want to stay at home anymore. When they are voting, when your legislators are voting 22 on an important issue, call them ahead of time and then you can check in weekly to remind them of your concerns or to share information. I haven't heard anything since the last hearing. What's happening with this issue. Don't forget about me. And then in terms of the election coming up, remember that that's still happening and so you can get ready to vote and help others, and there's a link there to resources for that, and you can also get a link to major candidates' news on the issues affecting the disability community, and so that's important for you to look at too. Remember that hour or two you can do research, there's a couple links you can start with. Other links, you've heard me talk about telling your story when I'm at Tuesdays at the capitol there's a link to that app, so you can use that on your tablet if you have one or your phone and that's an easy way to walk you through some of the questions I just discussed and then when we talk about the upcoming election with the revup campaign there's a link there. So any questions or comments? >> Yeah, this is Heidi. Have we updated that app to tell your story to be on 23 different platforms? Because I use android. >> Yes, it is. >> Okay. Cool. Because in the past it was not, you know, it was only a certain like Apple and certain things and I didn't know if it got improved over the years. >> It did. You can go to that link and it will tell you or you can go to your Google play store and type in telling your story app. >> Can Minnesota CCD or you or somebody sends that out to us? We would love to have that. >> We'll be putting this recording and the whole PowerPoint on the MNCCD website and social media and everything so if you want to look back at this at any time you can do that. >> Oh, okay. Thank you. >> This is Roger day. In the meantime could you show that link again for the Partners in Policy Making. >> I think it's the last slide. 24 >> Right. >> Yep. >> That's it. Thank you. >> Is there a way you can zoom in a little? Awesome. Now we lost it. No, awesome. Thank you very much. >> I should comment that you also -- your organizations probably have similar telling your story documents. I know brain injury appliance just to name one has done a ton of work. I think there's some with centers for -- metro center for independent living has some things. They have some classes. I don't know if they're doing anything virtually, but you can also -- if this particular PowerPoint doesn't meet your needs, you can certainly check with your organization because there are people who do want to help you get your story out there. >> I'm going to close out this PowerPoint if everyone is okay with that. >> Yes, thanks. >> Perfect. 25 And I'm going to pass it along to Jillian really quick if she's ready to briefly share her story about living with a disability during COVID and what her story is a little bit to give an example. >> So yeah, so I'm going to just tell my story not necessarily because my story is more important than anyone else's but just to demonstrate how we can use all the tools Jean just shared and crafting a story in the time of COVID. So just to kind of give it some background because it's hard to tell your story without knowing what you're talking about. I've been talking a lot with a federal representative kind of about why we really need to pay attention to some of these issues, especially about medical supply scarcity and how people with disabilities might be treated during some of the peak areas when there is a shortage, so my story would be something like this. Thank you for talking with me today. My name is Jillian Nelson. I'm an autistic adult in Minnesota. I want to speak to you today about some of my concerns regarding policies related to shortage of medical equipment and scarcity of supplies and whether or not people with disabilities will receive the same access to 26 medical care. I work full-time in the disability community advocating for people with disabilities on a public policy level as well as helping families and individuals impacted with autism find individual resources. I live on my own in the community and I have my own apartment and I drive my own car and I hang out with my friends. I have a relatively normal life. The only difference is that I'm an adult with autism. Because of this, though, because of that diagnosis on my medical record, if you were to get severely sick with COVID-19, unless there's a specific policy in place with the federal government, I might not be able to receive the same access to medical resources or a ventilator or intensive treatment as someone who doesn't have a disability. A lot of these decisions are being made because people decide that the lives of people with disabilities aren't as valuable as other lives. I share with you about my life though, and my life is pretty much the same as anyone else's, I just do things a little bit differently. I think it's really important to remember that the value of a life of a person with a disability should be based 27 on how we experience our life, not on how other people interpret our life. So I really ask that you take some time during these conversations around COVID and how we can support the country to really remember that policies to protect people with disabilities are really violates and necessary right now. Thanks for your time. [Applause] >> There was something in the chat that Hannah had put up there, and there was a request to just read it and make sure that everyone hears. So Hannah had said, I don't know if this will help others, but there's a group on Facebook that you can ask for help to get things delivered and then there are subgroups for different areas. I think maybe that's under the -- I think Tyler Frank from the SRIU union had posted some things so it might be on their Facebook page just off the top of my head and then she had she would like Metro Mobility to deliver their groceries but she can't utilize that support because they only allow four bags. So that's interesting that I didn't know so maybe if we're talking about transportation that's another issue that we can bring up. 28 >> The reason they -- I take -- this is Heidi Meyer. I use Metro Mobility is because people -- it really is meant for using all the seats correctly and making sure the wheelchairs can be in it so like if someone wants to use Metro Mobility with mom, she can go and do that and go for an activity but the problem is that people were abusing it and they were bringing all sorts of things on Metro Mobility. It's the same thing on the city bus and we haven't figured out how to narrow that down to a couple bags so they decided if you're going to get help four bags is the minimum, so I use a cart so it works out but not everybody uses carts and there are drivers that will push the limit but realistically they have to down size it because there's only so much on each vehicle and then really we were thinking about the clients too, and they know they go grocery shopping. They know they pick up this stuff. It's just they have to put in policy in place many years ago because it was being abused. Now that things are different, I don't know if they will lighten the load or they will just say we'll go grocery shopping for you because right now they are doing that now. After all the sickness goes away they might not have 29 that service anymore but we had to have things in place. It's the same thing with the ID card we have it in place because scary things happen, you know, so that's why things are there. If that helps you guys. I sound like I was rambling but I hope it makes sense. >> Yep, thank you, Heidi. Does anyone have any questions for Jean or Jillian about telling your story? >> I just want to say -- this is Heidi again -- this was a good presentation of looking at a different way of writing your story because I've heard this many times and it's just like when we're telling about voting and I don't know how we're going to do that with the disabled if we're going to be telling it different because now we might not go out to our voting place to do it, so the disability community has to be creative in ways that we can tell the story, and I really appreciate this. This is Heidi. >> Thank you, Heidi. That's great to hear because we know that you're one person who has shared your story many times, so it's good that you learned a new perspective on it. With that being said, we have kind of a call to action for everyone on here. 30 Like we said at the beginning we are looking for your stories so we want you to send your story whether you are an individual with a disability, you are a parent of someone with a disability or you work for an organization who provides services for people with disabilities. We want to hear your stories, and MNCCD is looking to collect stories to send them out via social media and on our website and all of those avenues, all related to COVID-19 and what everyone is living right now, there is a link above, I can send it again, for a Google form to send us your stories. We'll also be sending out an e-mail if you're a part of our constant contact list serve. You'll receive that later today again. But it would be great if you could send us a picture as well because it always helps to put a face to the story if you're comfortable with that. Let's see if there's anything else. Does anyone have any questions about that, for our call to action? If you want you can also e-mail your stories directly to me, and I'll put that in the comments right now. Here's the link to my e-mail. [No audio]. 31 Then here's the link to the Google form as well. If anyone has any other questions. >> I just want to thank Bridget for how well she's done this on the fly planning things and I don't know if you want to promo any that are coming up or if you want to make a request for ideas, I know about the kids one we have coming up in a couple weeks, but I don't know if there are other agencies hosting. I know that Bridget has been doing a really good job trying to reach out to different people but we would love to hear what you want to talk about or hear us talk about. >> Bridget, do you want me to go over the next two weeks? >> Yep, I was just going to ask if you want to talk about next week especially. >> So next week on the 28th we're going to actually be hosting a federal town hall here, so the CCD -- excuse me, guys, it's still very early in the morning tore me. Traditionally CCD we have focused a lot on the issues that happen here in Minnesota, and it's really important because we're able to keep our feet on the ground at the capitol in most cases and really connect with those legislators but with everything happening in the world right now there's a lot of federal stuff going on too 32 that can have a huge impact on us and as Bill taught me the very very first Tuesday at the capitol. Minnesota is not allowed to run on a budget deficit. But the federal government is. One of the places that we would be really really wise to put a little more pressure is on our federal government because they have a much wider pot of resources than Minnesota does. So next week we're going to host a town hall. We're inviting all of the congress people and our senators to be here with us to hear the stories of people from Minnesota to hear what's happening here in our home state and what we need for them to carry with them on the hill in D.C. as they start working on the fourth COVID legislation that we're going to put forward. The following week, which I believe is May 5, we're going to also be doing some things brand-new for CCD and we're going to be hosting a kids version of Tuesday at the capitol. For all of self advocates on I'm sure you remember growing up none of our field trips were ever planned specifically for students with disabilities unless it was a therapeutic thing, so we figure what better way will all of our special education students are stuck at 33 home doing distance learning especially distance learning, it's not really designed for special education. We want to give them something really special for them where they can come here and then a little bit more about telling their story as a self-advocate and even as a tiny self-advocate their story really really matters. We're hoping to do some special things for that. We're going to do a little virtual tour of the capitol. We might have someone live at the capitol before we virtually go inside. And we also have a wonderful speaker scheduled to talk about telling your story from his perspective, and he's going to be here with his mom. I believe he's 8 or 9 but he's one of my favorite self-advocates in the world so we're hoping to start to engage some of the children in the disability world because they're our future and they're going to be telling their story long after all of us have moved on. So tell the little people in your life we would love too see special education students. Anyone that works with little humans that have stories to tell. >> Thanks, Jillian, yeah. >> Can you sends out a flier so we can put it on our 34 Facebook page and get people our young generation group to come? >> Yep, we will be sending things out about both of those Tuesdays in the next few days. >> Okay. And we can help you get the word out about the cool things you're doing. >> Yep, sounds great. Well, thank you everyone. And thank you to Jean and Jillian and Bill for talking to us today. I hope that was helpful and I hope that you guys will send us your stories and pass the word along to send stories to us because this is a very important piece of advocacy is your personal story, and so as many as we can get out, the more the word will spread about how everything situation is different and how everyone is handling this in a different way, so we really appreciate it. So thank you. Hope to see you guys next week. >> This is Heidi. I'll be there. >> Sounds good. >> You know me, I don't miss one. 35 >> Not even virtually you won't miss it. >> Nope. That's kind of scary. I do want to say thanks for having these because this is a great way to contact because he was wondering what we were going to do for Tuesdays at the capitol so this is awesome. >> We're quite excited to have them here. >> Yeah, so I'm happy that you guys put this together because it's just another way to stay in touch. >> Yeah, a little socializing as well. >> Yeah, and then I see my community is not like sitting in the dark without their flash lights. >> Life doesn't stop because we're sheltered in place. >> Yeah, so I'm really happy, you know. So I just want to bring that, you know, because I was thinking about Tuesdays at the capitol and then a friend of mine introduced me to this because she saw it on Facebook and said, hey, you need to go, so I signed up. >> Of course. >> Hey, Bridget, since next week is federal town hall week is it in the budget to send me off to DC? I can do a live. >> Yeah, I think we can definitely make that happen. It might take a while for you to walk there. 36 I don't know. We'll figure it out for you. >> She'll get the whole plane to herself. They gave her the front seat because she had to go see someone who was dying and they were willing to take the front seat because no one >> I saw a cool thing on Facebook of four of our federal representatives that needed to fly back for an in-person vote and it was like Betty McCullum, Angie Craig, and a couple other people that were just on this plane together heading back to Minnesota and they were the only ones on the plane. >> Wow. >> It wasn't like a private jet. It was like a regular Delta plane. >> Of course. >> It was like at the very, very beginning of all of it. It was pretty cool. >> The tax payers didn't pay for that one. That's awesome. >> Yeah. >> All right. I'm going to sign off. >> Bye everyone. >> Bye. 37 Nice talking to you guys. [This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format. 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