8 minute read
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
MEET DR. MAYOR HODGES, Improving Accessibility One Act at a Time
BY DR. DAROLYN “LYN” JONES AND TENDRA DUFF
Meet Dr. Mayor Treva Hodges. That’s what the good citizens of Charlestown, Indiana call their mayor. Hodges is the city’s first female mayor and the first female mayor in the history of Clark County, one of Indiana’s southernmost counties. One foot over and you are in Kentucky.
Hodges is new to politics but not to advocacy. She previously taught at the University of Alabama in Communication Studies, Argumentation, and Debate. She and her husband moved to Charlestown to help care for some of his family members. She finished her Ph.D. in Humanities and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Louisville and was running for mayor at the same time because she was frustrated with missed opportunities to improve Charlestown. Her Ph.D. hooding ceremony coincided with her swearing-in as mayor. But that’s how Dr. Mayor Hodges operates—she always has several irons in the fire, and she successfully manages them all.
Part of Hodges’s campaign promise was to listen. As soon as she entered office, a grandmother posted on Facebook that she could not access the city’s park with her granddaughter who used a wheelchair because the handicapped parking spot had no lined space to allow her granddaughter to safely exit the vehicle. Someone forwarded the issue to Hodges and she thought, “that’s an easy fix!” She had the town’s facilities manager paint the appropriate crosshatch lines. Problem solved.
Each summer, the City of Charlestown hosts a Legends for MLB Camp for kids of all skill levels and abilities using one field for those with special needs.
That one small act snowballed into several others. Improving accessibility in the City of Charlestown became a priority. Hodges immediately began looking at the city with a different perspective and implementing relatively easy modifications that would improve access, including adding new parking spaces that allowed for wheelchair loading and unloading and trading portable toilets at their most used parks with accessible units.
When asked why a non-disabled individual would be interested in advocating for the disabled, Hodges said she has always been interested in activism for those who have historically been marginalized. Then her husband suffered a serious injury, and the issue became personal. They found the world to be very inaccessible to his inclusion and participation.
During the Bunny Bash Easter Dash event, a sensory friendly hunt featured eggs placed on cones to make it easier for those in wheelchairs to find eggs.
Hodges turned a focused eye to Charlestown’s programming for seasonal public events and worked to ensure sensory-specific times and accessible options for the Touch-aTruck, Easter, and Christmas events.
She set to work on longer-term changes as well. When completing the city’s Parks Master Plan in 2020/2021.
Hodges and her team invited a focus group of parents who have children that live with a variety of disabilities. Hodges wanted to ensure that the park’s planning included all children.
Mayor Treva Hodges meets with a visitor during the portion of the seasonal Easter egg hunt designed for those with special needs.
It became apparent early on that the city needed to be more responsive about building accessible spaces.
In October 2022, Charlestown was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana to replace outdated play equipment in their most-used city park with a fully accessible playground. Using feedback and stories collected from parents and caregivers in the community, a playground was designed that would welcome everyone. The new playground will have a solid play surface floor, ADA steps and a ramp to access slides, accessible swings, an accessible spinner, and a special sensory hut.
Charlestown, under Hodges’s leadership, has also taken steps to review opportunities for people who have become disabled as a result of aging. The town’s current initiative is to increase enrollment in the Charlestown Senior Citizens Club and to renovate the Senior Center.
Members of the inaugural Disability Advisory Committee and their families were recognized in the 2023 Founders Week Parade in Charlestown.
Another effort has acknowledged the needs of the city’s disabled veterans and military caregivers by formally designating Charlestown as a Hidden Heroes Community. Hidden Heroes is a nonprofit whose mission is to raise awareness of the issues facing military caregivers every day, inspire communities to take action in supporting military caregivers, and connect military caregivers to resources.
Hodges’s goal as mayor is to ensure that decision-making in Charlestown is community-led. She believes that collaboration with residents, businesses, service providers, and visitors will help make the Charlestown community more welcoming, more vibrant, and more engaged. Community partners play a significant role in that success.
Jennifer David with Outward Bound Support Services has been influential in Hodges’s initiatives. David has helped in identifying areas of need and in pointing out solutions. She pointed Hodges to a grant opportunity that allowed the city to acquire communication boards for their emergency response teams.
These boards, made available to the city through the Autism Society of Indiana, allow first responders and staff to communicate with residents and visitors who might be nonverbal, have limited English speaking skills, or who for any other reason are unable to communicate verbally with responders. The boards use recognizable pictures, phrases, and an alphabet.
David and her support network of parents and caregivers also helped Hodges organize the city’s first holiday dance party and dinner for families of people living with disabilities last December. It’s Hodges’s hope to continue to partner with David and others to increase programming options. After the successful holiday event, David and Hodges began chatting about how to ramp up the city’s disability inclusion efforts even more.
From that discussion, a Disability Advisory Committee was created to assess the City’s spaces and programming and recommend improvements as Charlestown grows. The committee has seven members and includes people who live with disabilities, caregivers, a service provider, and an adult advocate. The committee currently meets monthly and has begun a formal review of public access places.
In addition to the fully accessible playground described above, some of their suggested initiatives include:
• adding specialized artificial turf in the teen area of one of the parks because the turf typically used in parks or football fields interferes with hearing aid use;
• updating public buildings with wider doorways, accessible bathrooms, and lifts in interior spaces;
• adding accessible trails to a planned 70-acre park and civic center that will have accessible trails and an accessible space;
• and finally, spreading awareness and educating the citizens of Charlestown about these needs.
These initiatives are not just good for individuals with disabilities, they are good for senior citizens, for parents with children in strollers, and for children in general. Inclusion benefits everyone in the community.
When asked what her advice would be to other city leaders about their response to disability inclusion, Hodges said, “We hear about ADA, and we think it’s hard and expensive— but it’s not. Just listen and be okay with being wrong— thank someone for telling you what doesn’t work and then fix it. If you are building a new building, make it fully accessible. You are not going to be perfect, there will be barriers. But if you are looking for them, learning about them, and then doing whatever you can to remove the barriers and make your community truly welcoming, then you are doing the right thing.”
Hodges says serving as mayor has been the honor of her lifetime.
She is excited to keep Charlestown growing and changing. Her goal is to make it the most welcoming and accessible city in Southern Indiana.
Learn more about Hodges’s critical work in these news articles:
https/www.cityofcharlestown. com/222/Disability-Services
https/www.cityofcharlestown. com/210/Hidden-HeroesCity---Military-Caregivers
https/www.wlky.com/article/ charlestown-police-special-pictureboards-improve-communicationvulnerable-populations/41397904
https/www.whas11.com/article/ news/local/indiana/charlestowninclusive-playground-greenwaypark-indiana/417-e066195e-eca840a6-95a0-e9b5f83745df
