VICKI: You know, I love living near Temple except for at the moment. And when the marching band is playing outside my windows, 'cause I live across from the practice field. [laughs] But it's a totally different world. I mean you have to figure out how to have down time, which means getting away from the computer, which is harder to do, I find, with having just trying to like interact with people, because I need that. I'm deaf in one ear so I don't do really well on the telephone. So, the face-to-faces are actually really good for me because I've learned that I started to read lips even though I didn't realize it, and I can take more social cues this way.

LIAM: I was going to ask how you're able to communicate? It sounds like Zoom is a good thing for you?

VICKI: Yes. One of the things I told my Board when this first started was that we had to have captions because, most of the time, when there's a lot of stuff going on or there's more than one person, I have to have captions. When I'm doing one on one, like this, I don't have a problem with it but when there gets to be more people, or it gets to be longer, I get tired of having to hone-in, you know, and really try to listen when they're longer periods of time.

LIAM: VICKI: , you did a really good Disability Pride. It was a month-long event in March or April?

VICKI: It was the end of June through July.

LIAM: It was so cool and it was amazing how you pulled it off in terms of captioning.

VICKI: You know, my organization...accessibility's not a choice. You have to have captions, you have to have [ALS] interpreters or you don't do [the event]. There isn't, ‘well we do captions and not get an interpreter or we'll do the opposite. You have to have both because you're not thinking about your whole community when you don't add those captions and interpreter.

LIAM: It's so funny that accessibility is this divisive thing...

VICKI: You know, we're trying to be leaders in the accessible world, and so these are not options. We don't have events if we can't have either of those there. And it's one of the things that I get on other organizations about it because if we don't speak up and say something, it will never happen.

LIAM: Thank you for speaking up. You were mentioning a little bit about medical experiences with COVID, education, employment, everything like that. Do you do telehealth visits?

VICKI: I have done telehealth, and they're good to a point. I saw my psychiatrist this way, the telehealth way and...its different. Some people love it and some people hate it, and I absolutely hate it. I've seen my regular doctor who is my rheumatologist you know, I've been able to chat back and forth with her, telehealth. But with some of the symptoms and things that are going on with me, I have to be seen. I have to be seen by an infectious disease doctor which is stupid but they're making me do that. And that's something that you can't do telehealth and I'm not going into their office. [laughs] I refuse. That's the one place, at the moment, you don't want to ever go to. [laughs] It just seems absolutely insane to ask somebody. And then there are some doctors – I use Jefferson Health System – and a lot of their doctors have offices in the hospital. Well, I'm not going. No thanks!

LIAM: Have you had any issues with getting enough PPE or protecting yourself that way?

VICKI: That, I have not had a problem with. I have some friends who are making masks and, you know, I feel pretty safe with the ones that I have and reuse. My boyfriend wants me to carry around one of these cloths [shows cloth]. You know, the microfiber ones with some cleaning stuff on it so I'm not touching anything I shouldn't. But, you know, that's what happens. PPE, I think, is a huge thing for a lot of people don't have enough. And it is something that we're working on at the moment with two organizations to be able to provide for the disabilities community that needs it, more PPE.

LIAM: How is that going?

VICKI: It's going really well. It looks like we're going to be doing a couple big collections and then I'm going to be sending out some emails and Facebook stuff, some social media asking who needs it and then seeing how we can get them, get it to where it needs to go even if it is, like, I can drop off or I can get somebody in a certain area to be able to give them out to the people who show up on a certain day. There are some organizations right now who could really use it. Some of the home health places, so we've already had those lined up so we can drop off product to them also. There are places that need PPE and there are a lot of caregivers that need PPE so they can continue to go to their jobs and do things so. I have an organization that is very nice to us. We usually do a winter project and its usually to collect socks and things and necessities for the homeless. But this year we decided to do PPE and we're asking organization to donate PPE for other organizations and individuals who need it.

LIAM: Very cool. One of the things that really impresses me and that I wish more people would do better... Disability Pride has been able to adapt to what the world look likes now and the different things that we all need this year.

VICKI: We've adapted. You have no choice. It's not like "oh, well we don't know what to do so we're just gonna kinda hang out." We were like, ok, what will we do? We have to have a parade, so we just had a virtual parade. It just took thirty days. [laughs] And we've discovered, which is amazing, is that we'll never go back to just in person events. We'll always make sure that there is this element to it. Because the Disability Pride virtual parade that we had, we had over fifteen thousand people that logged in and from twenty-seven different countries. So, we're reaching people, so we have to keep somewhat of this going forward and I think it's stupid not to, for everybody, to figure out how this becomes normal with in person stuff. [laughs] I want to go back to in person.

LIAM: We'll be a few more months at least.

VICKI: Yes.

LIAM: My last question Can you imagine life after COVID-19. How do you think that will look? How do you think it will be different or the same?

VICKI: What I'm hoping will be the same is the fact that we now realize that there are folks out there that are thriving at doing work like this, you know, at home. To me that increases the disability employment for zillions of people I believe. Things that I want to be different? I still want people to have access. I think one of the things that happened during this whole shut down, and close down, and things like that is that the cities didn't really think about access when they were doing these things and that is a huge problem. They were letting restaurants take over the streets and take over the sidewalks and didn't care that, you know, that somebody using a wheelchair needed to get down. The broadcasting without the captions or interpreting, you know, was not always great. I'm super excited to see people and I think that things will go back, I'm hoping to a new normal, to a better understanding of what can happen if people aren't being safe. So.

LIAM: Do you think that there will be generally COVID will affect advocacy and activism on a policy level?

VICKI: Oh, definitely. Its already has started. I mean, we've seen what has happened in the nursing homes. The President of the United States wouldn't use an interpreter. Advocacy need to be even [stronger] and we need to make sure that the new plans that are put in place for things that happen in the future absolutely have disabled people in front and center.

LIAM: That's one positive, right? In things like employment, there are certain ways that there's access there that wasn't there wasn't before.

VICKI: For me, personally, like I couldn't sit in an office all day. I couldn't stand at a job all day. So, if that was the only thing that was available, I wouldn't be working. We wouldn't have Disability Pride. So, I'm grateful for it but, I also think that there are... we've figured out - because these employers wanted to keep people working – we've figured out how to do it. So why not make it a permanent thing, so why not let people who need to work from home, and now know that there are folks sitting at home that can work and can do the job just like somebody in the office.

LIAM: That's my hope as well. We need a win right now. Is there anything else you would like to share?

VICKI: I hope that people take into account all of the things that a Zoom meeting makes available for people with disabilities and really start to look at their ...United Spinal Association, they were making people take an ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] check, and they were, organizations were actually completely going through a check list of are they not only they ADA compliant, but are they ADA friendly? I think they're bottom basement, which is the ADA which was thirty years ago to what we should be doing which is way up here [gestures above her head]. If you're just doing bottom, you're not doing enough.

LIAM: I've never heard that terminology - ADA friendly. It makes so much sense.

VICKI: You want to be friendly; you want people...it's common courtesy to me. You know, I want my friends to be able to come into my apartment and be able to access and have fun, so why wouldn't you want that for your business, you know? And so, you just have to make sure. I don't live in a place where my friends can't get in. I have an open floor plan so that all my friends with wheelchairs can come in and we can hang out. It's not that difficult if you actually just took the time to think about it.

LIAM: I agree. Thank you so much for taking some time. Thank you again, Vicki. Happy December.

VICKI: Yes. I'm so excited! I'll talk with you very soon. Bye!