Sarah Eskowitz recounts raising her son with significant disabilities in 1970s Calvert County, noticing developmental delays and rejecting institutional care in favor of community-based, family-sized homes.

She and other parents successfully advocated to shift funding and policy toward smaller supported homes; today her son lives in a supportive group home, socially engaged and well cared for, illustrating how grassroots advocacy transformed services for people with disabilities in Southern Maryland.

Host Rita Rich interviews Jim Vail, co-creator of My25, about using a meal-planning platform to improve nutrition and health for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They discuss practical tools like videos, smart grocery lists, plate rebalancing, and moderation over deprivation, plus measurable outcomes such as improved BMI and reduced medication needs.

Learn how My25 saves staff time, supports healthier choices in group homes, and where to find the platform and ARC Southern Chesapeake resources.

See Me, See My Ability is the podcast of the ARC Southern Chesapeake. In this episode, Rita Rich celebrates summertime activities while spotlighting the work supporting adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The episode explains the Olmstead Supreme Court decision and a recent Department of Justice opinion that could weaken community living protections, featuring warnings from disability advocates about the potential consequences for home and community‑based services.

ARC Southern Chesapeake affirms that disability rights are human rights, shares how advocates are monitoring these threats, and invites listeners to find the podcast at arcsoch.org and consider supporting their work.

Citations:

See Me, See My Ability presents a look inside the ARC Southern Maryland’s new sensory room in Lexington Park with Beth Wolfe, the director of nursing. In this episode Beth describes the room’s calming features — subdued lighting, music, a lava lamp, a chalkboard mural by a program participant, and flexible seating — designed to offer quiet and choice.

The episode highlights hands-on activities like shaving cream play, weighted blankets, music stations, therapy balls and gentle stretching that help reduce anxiety and support sensory needs. Staff explain how the room is used by day program participants and residential individuals, and how simple tools make relaxation and therapy feel fun.

The sensory room’s growth is driven by donations and grants; the episode thanks supporters and shows how small comforts can make a big difference in daily quality of life.

Kayla Carter, director of ARC Southern Maryland’s Waldorf day programs, describes how she creates community partnerships, meaningful volunteer opportunities, and a lively activity calendar to help clients gain skills and independence.

The episode covers outreach to local businesses, hands-on learning (money management, languages, Zumba, knitting), family feedback as a measure of progress, and the importance of a sensory room for calming and self‑regulation.

Three-D printers are all the rage and The Arc Southern Maryland is teaching its clients to use them to create assistive technology. Listen as Nora Walker, with the State Department for Disabilities visited with us in Prince Frederick and showed us some of the many possibilities.

Hear this conversation with a parent, and a longtime advocate for IDD students in Charles County, Donna DePamphelis, who is being honored next month by the statewide Arc Maryland. This mom of the soon-to-be 34-year-old Rashawn, one of our residents, talks about all that the Arc Southern Maryland has done for her and her daughter. 

At last! It’s Baseball Season! For the past couple of decades that meant that Arc Southern Maryland clients and personal support staff get a field day with members of the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs professional baseball team!  Listen to the fun and comradery and get yourself to a game!

One of the things that happens during the podcasting classes at the Arc Southern Maryland is that our instructors and staff talk with clients about all sorts of neat things. One of those things was this past week's Artemis II spaceflight to the far side of the Moon, or the side of the Moon we do not see when we look up in the sky. We discussed how this moon mission harkens back to the time of the first moon flights, which coincided with the very first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.  Back then that was the very first time the world got to see our home from space, as the small blue planet that it is. That image sparked a movement for common good, cleaning up the Earth and trying to repair our world.

To help with our discussion with talked with the Environmental Educator from the Alice Ferguson Foundation, Cody Hance. This native Southern Marylander is concerned about the amount of plastics that end up not only in our food, but as micro-plastics, inside of all of us.

The music is by way of a YouTube upload of a 2017 commemoration of Earth Day at the New York City based American Museum of Natural History. We sample it with the permissions that are given productions that are made for teaching and educational purposes. The music was composed by The Turtles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzjJGGhKsHA

Episode art created using Microsoft Co-Pilot

Our podcasting class in Prince Frederick hosted the lady in charge of the State of Maryland's Autism Strategy, Victoria Rodriguez-Roldan.  She heard some of our participants' personal stories and answered questions from staff. You can find out more about where Victoria works here: https://mdod.maryland.gov/

Music: Ron Davis, jazz pianist, "All God's Children."