Karen Perry of Portland, Maine has been selected as the Hamilton Relay 2016 Better Hearing and Speech Month Recognition Award recipient for the state of Maine. According to her peers, Karen is a tireless advocate for her community and brings positive energy to every endeavor.
Karen has leant her artistic skills and eye for design to leading art therapy groups at the Cancer Community Center, as well as at annual retreats with the National Aphasia Association. She brings this aesthetic inspiration to the streets in her work with Friends of Congress Square where she helps with the park’s landscape design and maintenance. As part of this group, she also advocates for the accessibility of local businesses and helps to promote events in the park for area residents.
Karen is currently a voting member of the Portland Disability Advisory Committee (PDAC), a role that leads her to be a PDAC representative for a number of other consumer-based advocacy groups such as the Coalition for Housing and Quality Services. She is dedicated to educating others about the obstacles individuals with disabilities may face and has recently started offering trainings to the Greater Portland Metro Bus system so that they can effectively serve passengers that have mobility and communication barriers to public transportation. Karen approaches her activism from all angles motivating community members, involving businesses and bringing the concerns of the disability community to city officials when changes need to be made.
Karen is an inspiration to many in her community and we commend her for her dedication and leadership and are pleased to present her with the Hamilton Relay 2016 Better Hearing and Speech Month Recognition Award for the state of Maine.
This leadership recognition has been brought to you by Hamilton Relay.
About Hamilton Relay
Hamilton Relay provides contracted Telecommunications Relay and Captioned Telephone services through 26 contracts to 19 states, the District of Columbia and the Island of Saipan, and is a provider of Internet-based Captioned Telephone services nationwide. More information is available at hamiltonrelay.com.