Meet The Participants

Rose Acampora helped launch EDI in the early 1990s out of her friend CeCe Weeks’ living room. An undergrad in the UC Berkeley Disabled Student Program, Rose soon learned that despite being only 19 years old, her impeccable memory and self-organization made her well-equipped to employ a team of caregivers to take care of her personal needs so she could complete her schoolwork, have a fun social life, and help operate a fledgling emergency service organization. 

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Originally, they ran EDI out of CeCe’s living room, with a small $30,000 block grant and insecure funding: every year they had to apply again. The organization’s determined founder, realized that to provide reliable care to the disabled community, they needed to secure more resources. 

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The community organized, and with the backing of the city council, presented voters with Measure E, a small property tax in Berkeley that would fund emergency services for the physically disabled and elderly. The canvasing was intense: people with disabilities posted in front of grocery stores, the post office, and by BART entrances for months before the vote, convincing Berkeley residents that the measure would reduce pressure on the city’s emergency resources, like the fire department and hospitals, and provide essential care for people with disabilities. The measure passed in 1998. This story of activism will be told with archival footage, photos and interviews with Rose Acampora. 
 

Bruce Curtis is the acting Executive Director of Easy Does It. He has been a disability rights activist since the 1980s, fighting to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He's also a dancer. Bruce working to build coalitions with other organizations to expand the services of Easy Does It to other cities in the Bay Area, while assuring the organization continues.