INCLUSION – THE MOVEMENT
Photos by Darryl Howard / Soledad Trenard of Harlem Pix Media Group.
In Image No. 1: The stars of the evening, Ed Funches and Michael Schweinsburg.
Several different strands of the City’s disability rights movement came together at an event in Brooklyn on a bitingly cold evening in December, 2024.
First and foremost was an organization known as Inclusion The Movement, which hosted the event to celebrate its parent organization’s tenth anniversary as a provider of services to the City of New York, under the City’s MWBE (minority and women owned business) program.
Inclusion’s staff consists mostly of people who are formerly incarcerated and/or disabled, consistent with the organization’s motto--to “employ, empower, and enrich” its workers.
The event took place at a rather glamorous space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the W Loft, which featured a sparkling view of the Manhattan skyline. Despite the setting and the many tuxedos and gowns, the atmosphere was on the friendly and informal side. The night was billed as Inclusion’s first annual awards dinner. Award recipients included people who have been of service to the disability community—people like George Gallego, a wheelchair athlete and business owner who has worked with many formerly incarcerated people with disabilities, and Matthew Castelluccio, the founder and president of the Hudson Valley Chapter of United Spinal. Another awardee was Leslie James, who advocates for disabled residents of the New York City Housing Authority system.
Inclusion’s founder and CEO is Ed Funches, a formerly incarcerated wheelchair user. After completing his sentence in 1999, Funches made a fresh start as an entrepreneur, founding a record label and a small magazine. Several years later, Funches received an invitation to attend the annual Disability Expo. While reviewing the booths and the presentations by providers of specialized services and equipment like wheelchairs, he realized that “everyone makes money off the disability community, except the people who are disabled themselves.”
In Image No. 2: Inclusion’s award recipients. Front row, l-r: Luis Lopez, George Gallego, Ed Funches, Jeffery Lorenzo, Matt Castelluccio. Back row, l-r: Kieran Duggins, Victor Rodriguez, Michael Schweinsburg, Kingsley Grainger, Leslie James, Ben Tallerson.
“We have lives like anybody else,” Funches later told me. “We wear clothes like everybody else, we drive cars like anybody else, but we aren’t in the commercials or in the magazine ads, and we don’t get the jobs. More money flows through the disability community than any other community, between our living expenses and the expenses of our disabilities, but the disability community has the highest unemployment rate of them all. That’s what got me involved in trying to change the dynamics, by creating Inclusion.”
Inclusion’s initial focus was on raising awareness within the automobile industry about the importance of marketing to the disability community, because that industry has traditionally ignored people with disabilities, even though they are steady and reliable customers. From there the organization expanded into car washing and maintenance, then into janitorial services. It has become a substantial enterprise. During the COVID lockdown of 2020, for example, Inclusion washed and detailed more than four thousand New York City vehicles—becoming, as Funches put it, “essential workers for essential workers.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Funches concluded. “And Inclusion is a movement, we’re not going anywhere. I have communities that I’m representing, disadvantaged communities that other people look past and look over. Being incarcerated, getting out of prison, for anyone it’s hard to find employment. Imagine also being a person with a disability”
Inclusion was, of course, the night’s main event. But a second theme came courtesy of one of Inclusion’s other awardees--Michael Schweinsburg, President of the 504 Democratic Club.
The City Council had recently voted to present Schweinsburg with a formal Proclamation to salute his decades of service to the City and the disability community. Like the seasoned political operative that he is, Schweinsburg made the most of this honor, inviting elected officials to come to Inclusion’s event and present the Proclamation in person. In so doing, he brought his political colleagues together with Inclusion’s colleagues.
In Image No. 3: The honoree, accepting the City Council’s Proclamation. Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, City Council Member Gale Brewer, Chair of the Oversight Committee, Michael Schweinsburg, City Council Member Linda Lee, Chair of the Disabilities Committee.
City Council Members Linda Lee, Chair of the Disabilities Committee, and Gale Brewer, Chair of the Oversight Committee, presented the Proclamation to Schweinsburg, and read it aloud: “Mr. Schweinsburg has devoted the last 25 years of his life to creating positive change . . . We, the undersigned Council Members, gratefully honor Michael Schweinsburg for his extraordinary service and enduring commitment to the community. . .”
Other elected officials in attendance included strong allies of the disability community, New York State Assembly Members Harvey Epstein and Emily Gallagher. Also present, on behalf of former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, was her daughter, Virginia Maloney, who was running for her mother’s old seat.
Also in attendance were Dr. Sharon McLennon Wier, the Executive Director of Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY); Arthur Schwartz, the civil rights and labor attorney; and Angela Melledy, the founder, former editor, and publisher of Able News.
From what I could tell, the two strands of the event had had little prior contact. But over the course of the night, plenty of new relationships were struck (among other things, a number of Inclusion’s awardees have become members of 504 Dems).
The potential for further collaboration seems clear. Let’s see what the next few years bring.
Note: A version of this entry appeared in Able News, ablenews.com
by Warren Shaw
