Girl Scout receives award for her work

Alison McManus grew up very close with her uncle, as well as the 11 other residents that lived in his group home. He lives in the Oceanside residence for Adults and Children with Learning and Developmental Disabilities because he has Cerebral Palsy.

McManus, knowing the residents all her life, had considered them to be a part of her own family. When she became older, she soon noticed that other young children, and even adults, had expressed being too nervous to approach the residents. They couldn’t form their own relationships with the residents like she was able to because they might had looked or acted differently. She wanted to change that.

In May, she officially received her Gold Award, the highest achievement a Girl Scout can earn. She joined the fewer than six percent that receive the award annually, by fulfilling the requirements and creating a plan of action that is intended to work toward resolving a social issue.

Titled ‘Nice to Meet You: Disability Does Not Mean Inability,’ her project was able to help younger children build the confidence they need to interact with people with disabilities.

“A lot of people have never really had the chance to interact with people with disabilities. For me, I had been with people with disabilities all my life,” said McManus. “I wanted to incorporate my Girl Scout Gold Award into teaching other people how to interact with people with disabilities so that they’re more comfortable, and that they have more confidence when they do interact. Hopefully, so that they can form those bonds and those relationships that I have.”

Through a booklet, PowerPoint presentation, activities, videos and a website, McManus educated young children on the perspective they should have to create these positive interactions with people with disabilities. She had even made it available in multiple locations and languages to ensure that teachers, parents and other adults could access these materials to help spread the message.

She had presented to several troops of various age ranges, including elementary, middle and high school, but her favorite experience, she said, was actually with the St. Agnes elementary troop, as their reactions had surprised her.

“When you’re dealing with younger kids, sometimes they’re not as interested in presentations, especially with certain topics that they might feel won’t pertain to their everyday life,” McManus said, explaining her experience with the presentations. “These girls, they wanted to know more, they wanted to have those interactions. They’re so young, but they’re not afraid. They want to become friends with people with disabilities, and that’s really special to me, because I want them to have those bonds as well.”

McManus had created activities for the younger kids to participate in, with the focus of “putting them in people with disabilities’ shoes.” For example, she had told the kids to put one arm behind their back, recreating someone who was missing one of their own arms, and told them to try to tie their hair up or to play baseball one-handed. She said not only did the children have fun with these activities, but it also helped them put these difficulties into perspective.

“To younger kids, when someone acts or looks different, it’s suddenly really different. I was trying to instill to them that it’s actually how each person is unique, and not different,” she said.

McManus has been a Girl Scout since she was just five years old. She was at Troop 801 in Rockville Centre when she received her Gold Award.  The minimum time required to work on the Gold Award projects is 80 hours, but McManus had gone above and beyond, since she began her project as early as her freshman year of high school at Sacred Heart Academy. She said her initial passion for the topic had made it easy to complete.

Her relationships with people with disabilities didn’t stop at her uncle’s group home. In 9th and 10th grade, McManus volunteered with Camp Anchor in Lido Beach for their summer program, where she was able to create more positive interactions and experiences for the campers. In 11th and 12th grade, she volunteered with HorseAbility, a therapeutic center on Long Island that is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals with special needs through equine facilitated interactions. She said she was able to gain inspiration through those programs for how she wanted to use her project to help other people become comfortable with approaching people with special needs.

McManus attended three ceremonies to celebrate her Gold Award, including the main one at Molloy University. At these ceremonies, teachers and educators who wanted her project information, so that they can work toward incorporating the material into their own classrooms, approached her.

In September, McManus will be attending Villanova University, where she hopes to continue spreading her knowledge. She is also looking forward to volunteering with the Villanova Olympics, the largest annual student-run Special Olympics event in the world that provides competition for more than 20,000 children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

“As a parent, you hope your kids follow your example. It was really gratifying to see our kids come up with great ideas on their own, and to really carry them out,” said William McManus, Alison’s dad. Her family is well known within ACLD, as they continuously support the group home. “It’s an underserved segment of our community, and they (people with disabilities) really just want to be a part of everything that everyone else does. For someone to be able to help build that bridge for them is just wonderful.”