-: Hello, my name is Jimmy Russell
and I'm a disability rights advocate
for the Ability Center of Greater Toledo.
Well, as a disability rights advocate,
I do a lot of research.
That research is then compiled
into one pages and things like that
that we can distribute to state legislators,
business owners, developers and the regents
that we can then work with them
to make sure that they come into compliance
with accessibility rights,
and make sure that all of those companies
are completely compliant with all the regulations
that the government puts forth.
And even beyond that to make sure
they're as accessible as possible
for people with disabilities.
So one of recent projects that we worked on
was with the Toledo Zoo.
They asked us to actually come in
and basically do a survey of their accessibility.
What we do is we come in,
we take a bunch of measurements,
and we compare them to our notes
and what the requirements are,
and then we write up a report
and give it back to them
stating you're not compliant here,
you're doing above and beyond, a great job over here,
and make sure that they do everything
that they need to do to be within the rights of the law.
So I actually have a pretty flexible schedule.
I do a lot of time in the office
because all of that fun stuff of meeting with legislators,
meeting with community leaders and groups like that,
only comes after hours upon hours of research.
So a large chunk of my job
is sitting at my desk and reading up on reports,
reading up on court cases that are coming down
to make sure that we are as up to date as possible
on the compliancy rules.
After that happens, we then schedule
large meetings with community members
and community groups to try and get
some grassroots advocacy going together,
depending on the size of the project,
or maybe we'll just go straight ahead
and meet with the business leaders
and just have a conversation with them
to make sure that they become compliant.
Right now I think I'm working on about
six different projects all at the same time.
It is kind of cool because we have a lot of freedom
to kind of discover our own projects,
so if there's something you're really,
really passionate about within the region or the area,
then you can kind of focus in
on that project for a little bit.
But, disability covers a large span of area.