Disability Pride Month: Carmen

Carmen was interviewed by DSAmd volunteer, Lisa Ungar, who wrote this article

Carmen is an amazing 28 year old woman who has embraced life and all it has to offer.  She is an accomplished athlete, leader, world traveler, chef, public speaker, ambassador for the Special Olympics, Instagrammer and legislative advocate. She lives a fulfilling, purpose-filled life which involves giving back to others as well as excelling and growing in all her many interests.

Carmen: A Leader, Athlete, Influencer, Puppeteer, Improviser, Advocate, Volunteer, and Long-Time Employee

When Carmen was 9 years old she learned how to snowboard.  Since then she has become an expert, snowboarding often at Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania and participating in snowboard races with Move United. Every year Carmen and her family attend a program in Breckenridge, Colorado where her father helps wounded warriors get back into snowboarding and skiing. While Carmen is there she works with disabled people who are learning to snowboard, and she participates in snowboard racing.

Carmen is an accomplished cheerleader and has participated in many cheerleading competitions for the Special Olympics. At an event in Florida, Carmen’s team was selected to represent the USA in the Wide World of Sports in Disneyworld, where she was also able to enjoy the roller coasters – the higher and more upside down, the better!

In 2015 Carmen participated in a cheerleading competition in Los Angeles and met Paula Abdul. At another competition in Austria for the World Winter Games of the Special Olympics, Carmen met Grace VanderWaal, the winner of America’s Got Talent.

In Abu Dhabi, Carmen competed in ballroom dancing, another one of her many interests.

Carmen is also an avid bowler, and bowls once a week with other people with disabilities.

A big animal lover, Carmen lives on a farm which has chickens, ducks, sheep, dogs, cats, honeybees and even emus!  Because Carmen is such a good swimmer, in Dubai she was able to ride on a dolphin who took her to the bottom of the pool and then jumped out of the water with her on its back!

Carmen is an expert ventriloquist and has many puppets with which she uses all types of voices. She has performed with her puppets at Gigi’s Playhouse in Annapolis and at the Special Olympics, as well as at Black Cherry Puppet Theater in Baltimore.

Carmen is a leader. She served as the emcee for the talent variety show that DSAmd and Gigi’s Playhouse Annapolis co-sponsored in recent years, and she co-facilitates improvisation games alongside typical directors from the Down Syndrome Association of Maryland, a paid role which she enjoys. She rarely misses a DSAmd Improv class.

Carmen also loves to cook. For 6 months during the pandemic she gave cooking classes on Zoom, teaching recipes such as chili, shwarma, irish stew, corned beef and cabbage, soups and many other delicious meals.

In addition to all the traveling Carmen has done to compete in her sports, she is also seeing the world with her family, visiting places such as South Africa, the Galapagos Islands, England, Scotland and Wales. Her next family trip will be to Australia!

Every fall Carmen goes on a cruise to the Bahamas sponsored by the Special Olympics where she attends leadership classes and does karaoke.

One of Carmen’s favorite things to do is to post on her busy Instagram account.  She has 30,000 followers.

In addition to all her activities, Carmen has worked at Mod Pizza for the past 8 years where she makes pizzas and salads, cleans tables, does dishes, restocks food and does anything else that needs to be done.  Mod Pizza sponsored the Value Meal Program in which they teamed up with Best Buddies for whom Carmen was the spokesperson.  Her picture was posted in Mod Pizzas all over the country and someone in a different state even recognized her!

Carmen is an advocate. Recently, the Maryland government has drastically reduced wages for Direct Support Professionals, the aides who help people with disabilities. As a result, some disabled people who need this help to function are losing their DSPs completely. This is a life-and-death situation for many people. Carmen has talked to her legislators and attended rallies to protest these budget cuts, along with groups such as the Self-Directed Advocacy Network and Concerned Citizens For Self-Direction.   Carmen spreads the word about this situation on her Instagram account.

Carmen’s dreams are to be on America’s Got Talent and to be the host of a TV talent show.

Is there anything this amazing woman can’t do?!!