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SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT: Joseph Maley Foundation
BY AUBREY WIEST (SHE/HER/HERS) SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Children possess some of the most remarkable qualities of humanity — curiosity, affability, and total acceptance, to name a few. Building on those innate qualities by teaching youth to celebrate the differences that exist between us all is at the forefront of Joseph Maley Foundation’s mission and programming.
Joseph, the eldest son of John and Vivian Maley, was born in 1990 and lived with a myriad of disabilities. As Joseph’s four younger brothers entered school, they began looking for ways to talk to their classmates about Joseph and how he navigated the world. With strong support from parents and community volunteers, Vivian created a disability awareness program for their school.
When Joseph passed away from leukemia at the age of 18, Vivian, John, and their sons established Joseph Maley Foundation in his memory to continue the work Vivian was doing. In fact, this first iteration of Disability Awareness has evolved into the Foundation’s cornerstone program. And while this program is focused on awareness and education, it has always centered around celebrating the beauty of our differences, and what makes us unique. That core value drives all of our work, and is at the heart of Joseph Maley Foundation’s mission: to celebrate differences and cultivate an inclusive community through education and service of youth in Greater Indianapolis.
The initial Disability Awareness program consisted of an educatordeveloped curriculum and volunteer speaker sessions, where individuals with disabilities would share the stories of their lived experiences with youth. Building on that model, Vivian knew that there was an opportunity to engage youth further. Not long after the Foundation’s establishment, she created our second education program, Puppets. Based on the ideal of kids teaching kids, the program utilizes seventh and eighth-grade students who use child-sized puppets to perform skits on topics related to all of the Foundation’s education programs. Puppeteers are trained at summer camps and become skilled at facilitating puppet shows. They then interact with the audience during the question and answer session after each show.
Hope, created to address the increasing mental health needs of youth, teaches students how to advocate for their own well-being, as well as that of their peers. And the latest educational offering, As You Are, was developed in 2021. This program focuses on family and gender diversity and ultimately teaches youth that they belong here just as they are.
Each of the Foundation’s education programs are modeled on the successful structure of Disability Awareness. The programs are educator-developed and developmentally appropriate, with the curriculum built to span all grade levels, from preschool to high school. Because these programs meet Indiana state standards, they integrate seamlessly into the school year, and provide teachers with the guidance needed to incorporate vital lessons on diversity and inclusion into their classroom.
As of 2023, the Foundation’s education programs are implemented over 80 times yearly, in more than 60 Greater Indianapolis schools.
In addition to our education programs, the Foundation has three service-centered programs: Junior Board of Directors, Fitness, and Family Support.
The Junior Board of Directors is composed of high school students from a multitude of area schools. Members serve as ambassadors for the Foundation, cultivate servant-leadership skills, and learn what it means to sit on a nonprofit’s board of directors.
Fitness, created in response to the need for adaptive recreational activities for children of all abilities and their families, now consists of three major initiatives: run2gether, seasonal family fun days, and tri2gether. run2gether, the program’s most popular initiative, pairs youth with disabilities with experienced runners. The athletes with disabilities are known as captains, while the experienced runners are their crew. The crew and captains work together, with specially designed running/racing wheelchairs, to train for and compete in a variety of racing events.
Understanding that to serve a child means to serve their family, the Foundation created our Family Support program in 2013. The program’s first initiative was to serve families through Individualized Education Program (IEP) assistance. Families who have a child with a disability and need help navigating the IEP process are paired with a pro bono attorney, who can provide guidance and act as an advocate for them. Family Support has grown to include the Sibling Support initiative. Sibling Support recognizes that siblings of children with disabilities are an underserved population, with distinct needs and experiences. Sibling Support offers youth the opportunity to connect with peers who have similar lived experiences and to learn strategies for navigating their unique role.
Over the Foundation’s fifteen-year history, we have served more than 350,000 Indiana youth. Our rate of service increases exponentially each year, especially with the transition of our education programs from exclusively in-person implementation to its current hybrid structure. The hybrid model--which includes both in-person and digital programming-was developed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Needing a way to serve existing school partners who were then operating solely under a virtual education model, the Foundation pivoted, creating dozens of curriculum videos. Initially designed to serve schools through completely digital programming, the curriculum evolved as schools began to re-open, offering in-person puppet shows and speaker events once more. The new model has given Joseph Maley Foundation the ability to grow its reach rapidly.
With the knowledge that each child, family, and school is one-of-a-kind, the Foundation tailors programming to fit the unique needs of those they serve. This standard has been scrupulously maintained throughout the years. And while the Foundation serves children primarily through instructional lessons on empathy and kindness, another core value of our programming is to provide youth with the opportunity to use their voices for the betterment of themselves and their communities. The two programs that most obviously fulfill this value are Puppets and Junior Board, but you can find it within each of our offerings, most notably, perhaps, through our volunteer speaker opportunities. Each of the Foundation’s curriculumbased education programs— Disability Awareness, Hope, and As You Are—utilizes the voices of volunteer speakers. Speakers provide impactful opportunities for their audiences to connect to individuals who may look, communicate, think, or feel differently than themselves. The Foundation’s youth speakers, the youngest of which is in fourth grade, are especially powerful. By sharing their lived experiences with their peers, they aid in the creation of a kinder and safer school environment. We are always looking for ways that we can better serve the youth of Greater Indianapolis. The Foundation’s ability to react to and serve emerging youth needs is integral to all we do. As new youth focused statistics on mental health, bullying, peer exclusion, and more, are released each year, the need for empathy-building programming is more than apparent. Joseph Maley Foundation knows that all youth deserve to feel not just heard or accepted, but celebrated for who they are.
If you’d like to learn more about Joseph Maley Foundation’s programs, events, or volunteer opportunities, please visit our website at josephmaley. org, follow us on social media, or reach out directly to our executive director, Vivian Maley, at vmaley@josephmaley.org
