DIA strategies, funding

Jacobson

I want to ask, was there a strategy in DIA or did things just come up and you said, "Okay, we're going to decide to--?"

McQuade

I think there was a philosophy and a mission. I think strategies were for specific kinds of events or legislation. I don't think there was like a five-year plan at all. Not that I remember. I think at times, I think Pat tried--and I think it was after Judy left. I think he tried to deal with the transportation problems by having borough meetings. There used to be complaints also from some of the members about why does everything have to be centered in Brooklyn. I think we were trying to respond to that, and he came up with that plan. I forget if we ever came up with an overall plan for the year.

My sense, and this is a sense, it's not like I have a complete memory of this, was that we were more reactive to issues. Yes, we had a policy that we would picket the telethon. I think there was also picketing of the cerebral palsy telethon in the winter months. At least we picketed the telethon that Jerry Lewis had for muscular distrophy once, that I remember. That was always held on Labor Day, and I remember cutting my Labor Day weekend short to come in and picket the telethon.

But our strategies, as I remember it, had really more to do with specific goals that we were trying to achieve in the sense of--for example, say we were trying to get more curb cuts, and I know we worked on that. If we could find some of these old newsletters, that would sort of help us to reconstruct some of these things. I remember we had, for example, if we had meetings, it wasn't like it was total chaos. We would have a meeting, we would go over what are we currently working on on legislation, or anything new that's come up that we have to deal with, plans for the President's Committee on Employment for People with Disabilities. If there was a conference that either we wanted to participate in or--usually, people would ask us to cosponsor something

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sometimes. It would be things like that and getting the newsletter out, things to put in the newsletter. There would be key things that we agreed we wanted to work on, and then there would be pop-up issues, and you'd be responding to something.

Jacobson

How did you get money to go--?

McQuade

We paid for ourselves; we paid for ourselves. DIA--I think there were dues after a while. I think we had dues. But anything we went to--Judy, if she was asked to go someplace, she would probably get the expenses from an organization. If it was an organization that really had money to pay for her--especially like going to Australia and all of that--she would get that paid for, but we were not a wealthy organization. I believe we had dues sometimes, and maybe people made donations, but I remember us basically paying--having the bus fare, renting the room. You would save for it, and you would do that.