New Voices Foundation
In 2005, a group of 36 professional and community leaders from education, health and business formed the Triangle New School Planning Council to address the needs of children with severe communication and physical disabilities.
The Council founded the New Voices Foundation, a 501(c)(3), to implement the mission with a driving commitment to serve our most disabled children--those who cannot speak or use their hands.
Since then, over $750,000 has been raised to:
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improve the skills of professionals working with these children in schools
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provide specialized equipment/ resources to schools
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fight the stigma that "just because you can't speak, doesn't mean you don't have something to say."
Co-founders
Don Stedman is former Dean of Education at UNC-Chapel Hill and former Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs of the UNC System
Pat Porter was formerly the chief of developmental disabilities at the NC Division of MH/DD/SAS and is currently a consultant to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health
Missy Lohr former educator and mother to Lara Jane Parker, a New Voices kid, who graduated from UNC in 1999