Christian A. Camerota

GROTON, Conn. – Grace Curtis paid it forward and now the Lighthouse Voc-Ed Center is paying her back.

The Voc-Ed Center, along with the Family Support Network, is presenting the third annual Grace Curtis “Stand Up and Be Counted” Day at the Mystic Marriott on Monday, March 23. The day honors its namesake, a powerful advocate for state special needs residents, by turning attention to the people who devote much of their time to caring for them.

“Because Grace brought us so much together and made us all better, we decided we wanted to start a conference in her honor,” said Kathryn Greene, the Voc-Ed Center’s executive director. “We like to have the participants be waited on since they work so hard for others all year.”

“Stand Up and Be Counted” Day will begin at 8 a.m. and feature two prominent speakers, Jonathan Mooney and Liane Holliday Willey. Attendees also will be served breakfast and lunch. The cost is $75 per person and the proceeds go to funding the speakers and providing scholarships to Camp Harkness for local special needs residents.

Mooney is a dyslexic writer and speaker who graduated from Brown University and has written two books, with much of his work focusing on the “audacity of normalcy.” One of his two books, The Short Bus, narrates his journey across the U.S. and his attempt to free himself from his learning disability by interacting with others who overcame their own disabilities in unique ways.

Wiley is a psycholinguist and best-selling author who lives with Asperger Syndrome, a highly functioning form of autism. She has overcome her disease to become a senior editor at Autism Spectrum Quarterly and founded The Asperger Society of Michigan.

Greene said event organizers chose Mooney and Wiley because of the way their efforts mirror Grace Curtis’ belief that people with special needs can overcome their challenges to lead exciting and important lives. Curtis had a special needs son who prompted her to start SCAR, the Southeastern Connecticut Association for the Retarded, and had been a leading area activist for the disabled until her death in February of 2006.

Curtis also was responsible for the start of the Voc-Ed Center, providing the initial $1,500 donation to pay its insurance costs in 1992. The conference aims to honor Curtis’ efforts and help area professionals combine and share their resources and feel appreciated for the day,
according to Greene.

Greene and April Dipollina of The Family Support Network spearheaded “Stand Up and Be Counted” Day in 2007, when it was held at the First Congregational Church in New London, where Curtis was a member. Greene and Dipollina have managed to expand the event from about 80 attendees to 250 last year, and expect that by the time everyone is standing and counted they will have closer to 300 participants this year.

This article appeared in the Groton Times in February 2009, and can be found online in its native environment here:  http://zip06.theday.com/blogs/groton_times/archive/2009/02/10/stand-up-take-a-bow-organizers-revving-up-for-grace-curtis-stand-up-and-be-counted-day.aspx