Chelsea’s Disability Pride Month celebration brought together residents, advocates, local organizations, and health professions students for a community event centered on belonging. According to the MGH Institute of Health Professions, members of its Coalition of Occupational Therapy Advocates for Diversity, known as COTAD, volunteered at Chelsea’s “United in Ability” Day celebration on Sunday in recognition of Disability Pride Month.

The event connected second-year Doctor of Occupational Therapy students Alexandra Cheung, Valeria Saldana, Madeleine Pouw, Luke Guernelli, Hanna Overholt, Betsi Alarcon Garcia, and Gwendolyn Townshend with local children, adults, families, community members, advocates, and organizations. The students supported activities and helped promote community resources while building relationships with people attending the Chelsea celebration.

For Chelsea, the volunteer effort was part of a larger local celebration. The City of Chelsea announced that its second annual Disability Pride Month Celebration, themed “United in Ability — Different Ways, One Community,” would take place Saturday, July 11, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Chelsea Square, with a rain-date location at the Williams Building on Walnut Street. The city described the event as a day of activities, community resources, food, drinks, and music.

Inclusion in action

At the event, the MGH Institute volunteers supported inclusive activities, including leading a group dance for children with disabilities. The school also reported that Hanna Overholt communicated with a Deaf community member using American Sign Language, a moment that underscored the importance of accessible communication in public events and community engagement.

Betsi Alarcon Garcia, who helped organize the volunteer opportunity through her role as COTAD Community Collaboration Coordinator, described the experience as rewarding. The MGH Institute also thanked Flor Amaya, Chelsea’s Director of Public Health and an alumna of the school’s Doctor of Physical Therapy program, for helping bring the community together around Disability Pride Month.

The Chelsea celebration reflects the broader purpose of Disability Pride Month: recognizing disabled people, promoting inclusion, and reminding communities that accessibility is not an extra feature of civic life — it is part of how public spaces, public programs, and public conversations should be built. The Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990 and prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in many areas of public life, including employment, schools, transportation, and places open to the public.

Why it matters locally

That context gives added meaning to a local gathering like “United in Ability.” While laws such as the ADA establish rights and standards, community events help make inclusion visible and personal. They give residents a place to celebrate difference, connect with services, and see people with disabilities represented not as an afterthought, but as central members of the community.

COTAD’s presence also connected the event to the future of health care and rehabilitation professions. The national COTAD organization describes its mission as promoting diversity and inclusion within occupational therapy and empowering occupational therapy leaders to increase equity and inclusion in the profession.

For students preparing to enter health professions, volunteering in Chelsea offered a practical reminder that accessibility is not only a clinical concept. It shows up in how people communicate, how families are welcomed, how children are included, and how community resources are shared. For residents, the event offered a message that was simple but important: different abilities, different experiences, and different ways of moving through the world all belong in the same community.

Chelsea’s “United in Ability” celebration was more than a one-day event. It was a local statement of pride, inclusion, and shared responsibility — and the volunteers who joined it helped make that message visible.