As of 2026, LifeWorks has been serving individuals with disabilities for 60 years. It continues to make a big difference. Anniversaries shouldn’t just measure years, but their impact too. I’ve been reflecting on LifeWorks’s impact, especially because March is Developmental Disability Awareness Month. Yes, services impact individuals, but what about the staff? What lessons have been learned? What perspectives have shifted?

A sample of just eight employees told quite a story.

(To protect the confidentiality of individuals served, names of individuals have been changed to either “Jack” or “Jane.”)

Gratitude changes you: One theme that emerged was gratitude, as seen in the quotes below.

• “I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff. There will be bad days and bad times. During COVID, we were so isolated. We talked about how it made you feel. I heard, ‘I felt alone.’ I’ve seen people be thankful for friends and for activities.”

• “I was off work for a week when my wife had our first daughter. I got cards when I came back. One of them said, ‘I hope your baby is just like you.’ That really impacted me.”

• “We’ve had emergencies come up where people need help right away, and I think, ‘Thank God for LifeWorks.”

Guard against underestimating: More than one story related to assumptions.

• “I was trying to get a printer to connect with a computer. I was getting frustrated, and I just couldn’t get it. Jack wanted to help. He kept asking me and asking me. I gave up and said, ‘OK, Jack, you can try.’ After all, he’d hack into staff’s wi-fi! He ran the troubleshooter, found the problem, and he fixed it. I didn’t think to run the troubleshooter, and now I always remember. Jack was incredibly sharp. You’d have to cover the keypad with your hand, or else he’d get the staff’s code. I remember thinking, ‘Why doesn’t this man have a job?’ It is so easy to underestimate people.”

• “One person I worked with spent intermittent time in foster care growing up, so he had first-hand experience with different ways to live. This impacted him. One day we went to Fareway. There was a person at the store’s entryway, fundraising by selling crepe paper flowers. Once we got into the store, Jack quietly said, ‘The man asked you if you wanted to buy a flower, but he didn’t ask me.'”

Inspiration: Staff talked about people they know through LifeWorks who inspire them.

• “Jane’s mom never became an empty nester. Her daughter has lived with her for years and years and years. That’s quite the commitment.”

• “Our pop machine is broken, so a group stopped at a convenience store to get pop. One person drank the whole thing. When she was in the van, she said, ‘Oh no! I just drank a pop, and I gave it up for Lent! What am I going to do?’ Staff suggested that she pray and ask God for forgiveness. So Jane started praying out loud, how sorry she was, and asking God to forgive her. She really cared.”

• “Jane has osteoporosis, but she still came, and she still danced. We don’t have to let the hard stuff weigh us down.”

Some challenges: The work is meaningful, but there are struggles as well.

• “I hate it when people call the adults we work with kids. They’re not kids! They are not all the same. Jack is difficult to work with; he has offended me over and over, and he doesn’t even understand he’s doing it. Then there’s this other person who’s in his mid-30s. He been very successful at his job. He’s admired by management, and he’s grateful for his work. He can do so much more.”

• “Sometimes when people learn I work at LifeWorks, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I just love those people.’ While that’s nice, they just don’t understand. People with disabilities are like people without disabilities. Some are great to be around, sure. Others are really, really tough.”

• “I can hop in my car and go to McDonald’s any time I want. Most people we serve can’t just hop in a car and go where they want. They have to think ahead, save the money, and sometimes ask staff to give them a ride days ahead of time.”

Community participation: Integration and choice have really changed over the years.

• “There are people who have disabilities, but they go to work. They show up. They try to do their job, succeeding more than not. Jane wants to work, and I’m able to help her. It’s fun.”

• “Choice has come a long way. The first day I worked, there was a person who was asked to sort recyclables. He loved to work, but he hated sorting recyclables. He was physically forced to do it, and it became a big thing. We would never do that today. However, on the cleaning crew, Jack was assigned to clean the toilets. He didn’t want to do that, but that’s the job he accepted.”

• “There was a person served by LifeWorks who died. He was such a part of the community, and everyone knew him. A community member who knew Jack died and was somehow part of LifeWorks said something like, ‘I heard about Jack and I’m so sorry.’ I cried on the spot. He really touched a lot of lives.”

There’s something people outside of LifeWorks may not know: there is mutual transformation. Individuals served have taught us about thankfulness, joy, and our own biases. They have shown up, worked, mourned losses, celebrated, and insisted–sometimes quietly–on being seen.

Impact is not one-directional, and it never has been.

What will occur in the next 60 years? It’s impossible to know. Together, I hope we build a community that values dignity before limitation, a handshake over exclusion, and mutual respect over misunderstanding.

That would be a legacy worth celebrating.

Teresa Naughton is the executive director of LifeWorks.