Hello Community Members!
On this #GivingTuesday and International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Our Odyssey board wanted to share several ways you can support our important mission, in addition to always needed direct donations! Please click the button below to learn more - and we invite you to share the link with your family, friends, coworkers, and communities! Then read on for more details about the future of Our Odyssey.
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The most important part of everything we do is you! What types of activities and what topics do you want meetups to focus on? What nonprofits and groups are you a part of that would be great for us to partner with on meetups? Would you take part in storytelling-focused leadership training and would you want to co-host a meetup? |
Our Odyssey - 2025 and Beyond! |
Over the years we have heard from meetup attendees and the Young Adult Programming Advisory Council that the social meetups are amazing ways to connect, but they need more variety. Board member Anthony DeVergillo developed Our Odyssey’s Overjoyed Accessible Controller to enhance social meetups, not to replace them. Overjoyed allows us to increase variety in our meetups because it creates an even playing field of accessibility for any activities we want to start doing.
Our current plan is to always keep our general social meetups with Ella and Kenna, but we are seeking funding to host fully accessible virtual gaming meetups, such as Mario Kart, board games, game shows, etc., and bring back Epic Arts with more accessible options to create art together! We believe that doing a collaborative group activity in a meetup:
(1) Reduces the social anxiety of meetups because doing an activity naturally leads to conversation, instead of conversation being the focus
(2) Adds variety because every meetup has a different activity
(3) Allows Our Odyssey to expand its funding sources to companies and organizations related to the meetup activities
Our ultimate vision is Our Odyssey social meetups foster a fully accessible community where young adults living with a rare or chronic condition can make connections through meaningful conversation, adaptive ways to have fun, and simply being there for each other.
In addition to meetups, we also want to train young adults in our community to grow as leaders by attending storytelling-focused meetups, writing blog posts, and by co-hosting meetups, livestreams, and educational workshops at colleges that help raise awareness of disability inclusion, accessibility, and social inclusion.
What would you want the future of Our Odyssey to be? Because this is not just my odyssey. not just your odyssey. This is Our Odyssey!
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