We Did It—Together!

Thanks to our amazing community of donors, we’ve reached our Campaign for Advocacy fundraising goal. Whether you participated by giving at the Summit of Hope, through Colorado Gives Day, in response to our year-end appeal, or you made a donation in another way, thank you!

Your continued investment in The Arc and individual advocacy helps ensure that people with disabilities in our community are able to drive their own lives, and dream bigger and brighter.
Engaging the Younger Generation of Self-advocates

Julian Wang, a self-advocate in Larimer County, has developed a survey to research why youth and young adults with intellectual disabilities are not joining or becoming involved with the self-advocacy movement. This project is funded by a national Fellowship opportunity through Self-Advocates Becoming Empowered (SABE) and Self-Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center (SARTAC) and is hosted by The Arc of Larimer County. 

For the purpose of this project, self-advocacy is learning how to speak up for yourself and making your own decisions about your own life. Self-advocacy is learning how to get information so that you can understand things that are of interest to you and finding out who will support you on your journey. It is also knowing your rights, responsibilities, and having good problem solving skills.

The purpose of this online survey will be to look at why young people with intellectual disabilities are not becoming involved with the self advocacy movement. Please consider taking the survey to help us reach a new generation of self-advocates.
Presidential Forum Watch Party Postponed

The Elected for Inclusion: A Presidential Forum
on Disability Issues has been postponed and will be rescheduled for a later date.

Due to the Democratic Debate, the Impeachment Hearings in the Senate, and unforeseen events, the forum will be rescheduled. We hope you will stay tuned for future details!
Census 2020—You Count!
Be Counted.

The 2020 Census is quickly approaching, and it is important that people with disabilities and their families are ready to be counted! Every 10 years, everyone in the United States is counted through the census. It is important that everyone is counted because the census data impacts many key things. For example, the census data is used to figure out how much money state and local governments get for Medicaid, housing vouchers, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and education programs. When there isn’t enough money, services and programs for people with disabilities can be cut. Census data is also used to determine how many representatives each state gets in the House of Representatives.

Census Day is April 1, 2020, and invitations to participate in the census will be sent out in March. For more information on why the census matters for people with disabilities and how the census process works, click here . Para información en español, haga clic aquí . Will you pledge to be counted? If so, you can click here to submit your contact information to Arc of the US who will send you a reminder to fill out your census form in March. You can expect more information from our chapter as Census Day gets closer.
Does your New Year's Resolution Include a Plan for a Loved One?

Thinking about planning for the future of your loved one with a disability, but not sure where to start? As the year comes to an end, it's a good time to think about setting goals for the new year.

The Arc's Center for Future Planning has free resources available to help you get started with planning for the future of your loved on with an intellectual or developmental disability.

Visit futureplanning.thearc.org to access free webinars, a topic-by-topic guide on where to start planning , and a resource directory . You can also hear other people's stories on how they have planned for the future.