Back in the summer of 2020, when the pandemic was at an all time high, my college-aged peers were outright ignoring the CDC guidelines and the rules that were going to protect immunocompromised individuals, like myself. This meant that this was a very lonely and isolating time. This is where the idea of a support group for college-aged immunocompromised students came from. I reconnected with an old friend, Cameron, I knew growing up, who is also immunocompromised, and she told me she wanted to have a Zoom call with some of her other immunocompromised friends. I was eager to join and help out in any way I could.
That first Zoom call had about 5 other people in it, besides myself and Cameron. That same day I started a Group-Me and since then we have grown to having over 75 people in the group. We hold weekly Zoom meetings and have a Snapchat group as well.
With the Group-Me taking off, Cameron and I decided we wanted to expand even further, we wanted to reach as many people as we could to educate and inform people on college-aged immunocompromised and disabled people, since a 20-year-old college student isn’t the image that pops into your head when you hear the word “disabled”.
Through this Instagram we began to create posts that ranged from educating people on the different disabilities members of the group had, to talking about the importance of the election, to ways our able-bodied peers could support us.
I have had such a fun time being able to use my design skills to help and promote something I am so passionate about: disability rights. It has been a very cool experience being able to apply what I’ve been learning to the real world and seeing it make a difference in people’s lives.