Harmony Day Support

03/15/2026

Out of extreme caution for our individuals and staff, Harmony Day Support will be CLOSED tomorrow, 3/16

Safety is our top priority during weather events like this and we do not want to be caught unawares. Check WSET for more information!

03/12/2026

Did you know about 1 in 6 children in the US have a developmental disability? Common conditions include ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, and other intellectual disabilities.

Did you also know that Lynchburg Parks & Rec offers programs for people of these communities to meet and create art together at the Templeton Center ? Join us on the 3rd Wednesday of the month for group recreation.

🦋Clothespin Butterflies (3/18) at 10:30am.
🎨Squeegee Painting (4/15) at 10:30am.

You may register with the link in the first comment! 🧡 Happy National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month!

03/02/2026

Harmony is mourning the loss of one of our dear friends Jimmy. It's was always a good time with Jimmy "Dean Sausage" brightening our day!

Celebrate the life of Jimmy D***s, leave a kind word or memory and get funeral service information care of Whitten Monelison Chapel.

02/27/2026

I'm in a real dill-emma without my Whopper 🍔

02/25/2026

We love playing a good game! Hedbanz is favorite here at Harmony

02/24/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Lois Curtis!

Lois Curtis is an artist that lives in Georgia. She is often invited to speak at places like John Jay University in New York, the Georgia State Capital, or the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in DC. However, while she was growing up Curtis was diagnosed with intellectual and mental disabilities. As a result, she would get in trouble constantly-at home and at school. At only 11-years old Curtis was sent to live at the Georgia Regional Hospital, a mental institution for people with disabilities. She would remain there until she was 29 years old.

Lois would bounce around centers, hospitals, and jails throughout her childhood and teenage years before she ended up at the Georgia Regional Hospital as no one understood how to care for her. But all she really wanted to do was live independently through a community-living arrangement. Louis simply wanted to pursue her passion for art, which she was not able to do during her years at the hospital. Eventually, she was deemed capable of living on her own, but the Georgia Department of Human Resources refused to provide her the proper resources to move out of the hospital and live independently. Sue Jamieson, an Atlanta-based legal aid attorney decided to represent Curtis in a case against Tommy Olmstead, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Resources. The lawsuit was filed with help from the Legal Aid Society.

The trial began in 1995, and it was in 1997 when judge Marvin Shoob ruled in favor of Curtis. This decision was appealed by the Department and it would go all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1999, a court majority ruled that it was unconstitutional to deprive Curtis the resources needed to live independently. They based their ruling on the grounds that in insolating individuals like Curtis, when they could benefit from community settings, was unconstitutional and a violation of their civil rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Olmstead Decision was a triumph for the disability rights movement. It allowed many individuals with disabilities to move out of hospitals and centers with federal and state support if needed across the United States. Since the Olmstead Decision went into effect in 1999, Curtis has been able to live in an apartment that she shares with a woman who helps her with activities of daily living.

Curtis takes art classes at the local hobby shop and sells her drawings for profit to buy more art supplies. In the end, all she wanted to do was to continue being an artist and she helped so many others along the way in fighting for this. Her impact led her to visiting the White House and meeting former President Obama, where she presented him with one of her art pieces in 2011. She has also been the recipient of the Harriet Tubman Act of Courage Award. 2019 was the 20th anniversary of the trial which was celebrated with a conference at the Georgia College of Law.

In an interview with Lee Sanders, a Career Specialist in Roswell Georgia, Curtis said: “Well, I make grits, eggs, and sausage in the morning and sweep the floor. I go out to eat sometimes. I take art classes. I draw pretty pictures and make money. I go out of town and sell me artwork. I go to church and pray to the Lord. I raise my voice high! In the summer, I go to the pool and put my feet in the water. Maybe I’ll learn to swim someday. I been fishing. I seen a pig and a horse on a farm. I buy clothes and shoes. I have birthday parties. They a lot of fun. I’m not afraid of big dogs no more. I feel good about myself. My life a better life.”

02/23/2026

More photos from our great event Love in Harmony! ❤

02/19/2026

02/18/2026

We had a great time at our event Love in Harmony! We want to thank Ashwood Manor Designs for sponsoring this event ❤️

02/17/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman was born Araminta “Minty” Ross to enslaved parents Harriet Green and Ben Ross in Maryland between 1820 and 1822. As a child, Tubman contracted measles but was still required to check muskrat traps in nearby marshes. As she grew older, Tubman was assigned more field and forest work such as driving oxen, plowing, and hauling logs.

Tubman suffered a severe head injury around the age of 12 when an overseer or possibly her master threw a two-pound metal weight at her when she intervened to keep another enslaved person from being beaten for attempting to flee. Left bleeding and unconscious, she was returned to her master’s house where she remained without medical care for two days. After this incident, Tubman frequently experienced extremely painful headaches, seizures, and would seemingly fall unconscious. These conditions remained with her for the rest of her life. Historians suggest that Tubman may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy and narcolepsy as a result of the injury.

Around 1844, Tubman married a free Black man named John Tubman. Although little is known about him or their time together, the marriage was complicated because of her slave status as the mother’s status dictated that of the children, which made any children born to Harriet and John enslaved. Tubman changed her name from Araminta to Harriet soon after her marriage.
While Tubman did not create the Underground Railroad as it had been established in the late eighteenth century, she possibly benefitted from the network of escape routes and safe houses in 1849 when she and two of her brothers escaped north. Her husband refused to join her and by 1851, it is documented that he had married another woman. Tubman would return to the South several times and help dozens escape. Her success led slaveowners to post a $40,000 rewards for her capture or death.

Harriet Tubman was never caught and never lost a passenger on the Underground Railroad. Tubman was known as the “Moses of her people” and also served as a scout, spy, guerrilla solider, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War. She is considered the first African American woman to serve in the military. Tubman also participated in other antislavery efforts which included supporting John Brown in his 1859 raid on the Harpers Ferry, Virginia arsenal.

After the Civil War, Tubman resided in Auburn New York, raised funds to aid freedmen, joined the quest for women’s suffrage, and cared for her aging parents. She would later marry a Union solider named Nelson Davis who was also born into slavery. In 1896, Tubman established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on land near her house. Tubman passed away in 1913 and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.

02/16/2026

Before Valentine's Day, Ms. Reva gave some of our guys a cooking lesson!

02/12/2026

In honor of , Harmony Day Support will be honoring disabled Black Americans. Today's post is about Matt Maxey!

Matt Maxey is the founder of DEAFinitely Dope, an organization that hires American Sign Language interpreters for concerts. Ever since it’s founding in 2014, Maxey has wanted to unite the hearing and deaf communities through music and sign language. However, early on, his struggle to fit in with both the hearing and deaf communities made him question his place in society.

Matt Maxey originally grew up in Atlanta before relocating to Houston. He uses hearing aids and was always surrounded by friends and family who would help him when needed. When he was young, his mother and grandmother discovered that he couldn’t hear when they would turn on the vacuum behind his back and he never reacted. They’d began yelling and he wouldn’t even flinch. Maxey’s mother and doctor decided on hearing aids and speech therapy so he could get use to communicating with the hearing world. Maxey says his level of hearing loss is like “trying to hear underwater. Without hearing aids, I can hear about 25% of what’s going on. With hearing aids, I can hear maybe 75%.”

Maxey stated in an interview in 2017, “I always felt like I was too deaf for the hearing world, yet too hearing for the deaf world.” Maxey said. “I think my situation is especially different with growing up in a hearing world, yet always working 10 times harder to hear with hearing aids and trying to lip-read what everyone is saying, knowing I can’t hear everything yet pretending that I could.”

After enrolling at Gallaudet University, a private institution for the deaf and hard of hearing in Washington, D.C., then Florida State College at Jacksonville, Maxey’s journey to fit in became arduous. Maxey had no formal ASL training until taking classes at Gallaudet and he struggled to find his footing among his deaf peers. He distracted himself by beginning a YouTube channel where he uploaded videos signing rap lyrics. Immediately, Maxey noticed the skyrocketing number of views his videos began receiving.

From there, Maxey began sharing his videos on other social media platforms. He even got involved in an Instagram freestyle competition created by Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard to allow users to share their raps. Maxey’s first entry was completely in sign language with written lyrics posted in the description. “I’ve been taking speech therapy for 18 years, people made fun of me for my speech my whole life and I’m extremely self-conscious of how I talked, which was why I found so much comfort in taking on the voice of an artist through sign language.” Maxey said. “The positive feedback was overwhelming from the community with the majority of the people commenting that they’ve never seen a deaf person rap before.”

With his viral videos and accounts growing and amassing followers, Maxey was prompted to want to do more for the deaf and hard of hearing communities. So, in 2014, DEAFinitely Dope was born. Maxey gravitated toward interpreting hip-hop and R&B because of its rhythmic beats and the often powerful stories in the lyrics. “Hip-hop has long been a favorite for the deaf community because of the beats and bass. So, for Chance the Rapper bringing on DEAFinitely Dope and being the first rapper to have his own personal interpreters just makes me extremely happy because I personally feel like our mission has been to break barriers in the community, in society, in perspectives and stereotypes.”

“The deaf community has dealt with so much ignorance and all they’ve ever wanted was inclusion and to be accepted and treated equally while being able to enjoy life on an equal level as their hearing peers.” Maxey said.

At the 2025 Superbowl Halftime show, Maxey was the ASL interpreter for Kendrick Lamar!