WDET News
- Dearborn Profile: Kathy McAdam
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Apr 23, 2008General - Link to Audio
LEAD: Cathy McAdam has been an activist in Dearborn for a long time. She's currently the chairperson for the Dearborn commission on disability concerns. She also has her own consulting business which specializes in assisting the disabled in various capacities. But as WDET's Zak Rosen found out...McAdams wasn't always this outgoing.
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Cathy McAdam and her husband moved to Dearborn
30 years ago.
She worked in Detroit.
He in Ann Arbor.
So Dearborn seemed like a good mid-way point
to settle down.
At the time I wasn't thinking that it was that big a deal.
But McAdam lost her husband to AIDS in 1993.
And as you'd imagine it's been difficult for her.
There's a difference between being alone which I was, and being lonely and I don't think the loneliness was as bad in the sense of knowing I was around people I could reach out to.
McAdam is blind.
And in her husband Bill...
she had a loving partner and friend.
But he was also a dependable ride to the store
and a sturdy arm to hold onto.
So the first thing I had to figure out was how to go grocery shopping and some of the nitty gritty things.
Me: What was the last meal you cooked for yourself?
Schwanns and I are friends. I just had some little sausages that I did in the microwave. I do a lot of things in the microwave. I do make a pretty good goulash though if I do say so myself.
McAdam's gives me a tour of her
modestly retrofitted kitchen.
There's brail on her microwave and little
pieces of demo tape that tell her where 350 and 400
degrees is on her oven.
Then McAdams shows me a wall in her living room...
lined with about 30 music boxes.
I was losing my vision and somebody thought it would be a good idea to look at music boxes as a way to deal with it.
(sound of music box)
Until she was in her 20's McAdams had 2 percent
vision in one of her eye's.
I remember once walking down the street with my sister, and she was describing things she was seeing inside a house and it was very vivid. And all I could see was the frame of the house if that. And I was just totally shocked. I had no idea people could actually see those kind of details.
McAdams confidently walks me back to her office.
This is some of the technology that's really amazing today...so the computer talks to me...Now I can read anything that anybody else can...
In 1999...McAdams was tired of her job as a medical
social worker and started
her own consulting firm.
And now she's all about teaching people how empowering technology can be.
Whether they use the computer by their voice or they do by listening to the computer talk back...it just seems to open up all kinds of doors
Me: Have you always had such a positive attitude?
No. People who know me now would not have believed who I was in my 20's. Really struggling with who I was and that blindness was ok. I was painfully shy...and maybe that's why reaching out to others right now is so important...because it doesn't come easy.
McAdam chairs the Dearborn Commission on
Disability Concerns.
It's her job to make sure the city does all it can
to make sure residents have equal access to programs and services.
That includes everything from homecoming to being sure that if somebody needed a listening device or interpreter to be in a meeting that they would know how to address those issues.
The commission was formed after the Americans
with Disabilities act was signed into law in 1990.
McAdam's work on the commission has a lot to do
with helping people in Dearborn manage their daily lives.
Then with her consulting business...she trains people
to teach disabled people how to use computers.
She also helps college students prepare for the working world.
I didn't have my first job until I was 26...back then it was hard to get a job...any kind of job if you were blind.
McAdam's knows how important a solid support network is.
Without her own...she says she would have
had a much harder time dealing with her
blindness and her husband's passing.
I think the connection I've had with people with disabilities in Dearborn has been really wonderful because it's been across different groups. And I've learned a lot on how other people manage...I see Dearborn as more and more integrated than when I was first growing up. I've really come to appreciate it more.Cathy McAdam is 61 years old but says she's getting
younger all the time.
She says she learns just as much from the people she helps...
as they learn from her.
Though there's still a stigma towards people with disabilities...
McAdam thinks we need to just let people be people.
And that's the essence for why she does the work she does.
For WDET...I'm Zak Rosen