Hampshire County
Community Story Archive
Sharing Stories, Creating Change
JACY
Jacy is a lifelong resident of Hampshire County, raised in Westhampton and now living in Northampton. She is an early childhood educator and researcher who cares deeply about the wellbeing of children and families. Jacy has epilepsy and has spent her life learning how to live in a world that is not set up for people with disabilities to thrive. She advocates for accessible and reliable transportation in Hampshire County, especially for people with disabilities and people living in the rural hilltowns.
In this clip, Jacy shares about her experiences figuring out how to get groceries during the early days of the pandemic, especially as someone living with epilepsy and struggling to access reliable transportation. She talks about how MA Food Delivery and the Northampton Survival Center offered lifelines to her at this time.
In this clip, Jacy talks about the ups and downs of food insecurity, including some of the best and worst meals she ate while relying on food from the Survival Center, such as Carrot Pudding and Turnip Potpie. She talks about how good she got at using food scraps to make homemade broth and how she continues that practice today.
In this clip, Jacy talks about the importance of having agency over our own lives. She shares her experience using public transportation as a disabled person, highlighting the vast disparities between private sector transportation solutions (such as on demand services, effective technology to get real time updates on when to expect your ride to arrive) and the services offered to local disabled residents through public transportation (including long wait times, lack of communication, and ineffective low-tech tools). She shares her vision for a better transportation system for disabled residents, especially those living in the rural hilltowns.
“People think when you're hungry, or when you don't have a lot of food, that you're just eating nothing, [but] it’s more like you're going up and down. That's the reality of [it].”
Check out some interview excerpts below:
“I have epilepsy….As I was an adult going out in the world, for the first time I [realized] I actually can't do stuff. I actually can't drive a car. How am I going to live? Sadly, I think many people who are affected by it most [disability and transportation] cannot advocate for themselves or talk about it. People who don't ride on the van, or ride on public transportation should have some way to understand it. It's ridiculous to me that there is not an updated or equitable system…that you can be on the fixed route bus and pay with your phone, money or with a swipe card and you don't have a choice when you go on the van transit. You have to buy or send away for a ticket or you have to have exact change. You’re scolded like you're a small child if you don't have either of those things.”
[In the education field] “I work with families who need lots of things… sometimes my staff, will go…we'll just just give it to them…and I said, you can't.... You have to really understand what they want. You have to ask what they need because there’s still agency in that.”