Empower Network: Empowered Together
As we close Disability pride month, we've learned so much from working with the Empower Network. Writers in Residence collaborated with them in order to bring together two writers groups to collect stories from their community. We had a chance to build a community tapestry of understanding with words. We discovered why some entrepreneurs come to their own business reluctantly. Reluctantly, due to commendations not being met, inconsistency in attendance, or due to a lack of opportunity and resources. We found camaraderie in these stories and discovered we are all silently struggling with health, life and work balances. Along with not being heard, setting and holding boundaries when our health is on the line, and more. The completed tapestry helped us all to learn from each other and how we've resolved similar issues. It was an amazing experience to hear the echoes of the struggles that I, myself, continue to battle. It was a humbling and empowering experience that I was honored to host and to be entrusted with their stories.
Today, July 27th 2026, I found myself facilitating a table at an Empower Network luncheon and sitting among a community full of hope. The hope being that by collaborating with a multitude of individuals in all walks of life we might support and empower a select group of individuals that have, up to this point, not been spoken with or seen enough. The entrepreneurs with disabilities who have been negotiating work life balances, medical issues, social security benefit requirements, and monetary puzzles. People in our Metro who are out here trying to make a difference for themselves and their communities. Patricia and myself included in their numbers.
I sat across from Westley, the founder of a non-profit organization called, “Disabled, but Not Really”. He also runs his own inclusive gym for people with disabilities. A woman in finance also attended, trying to learn how to envelop inclusivity policies for their clients and future employees. All while coping with her own new chronic illness diagnosis and how to work alongside it. Also in attendance was a representative from the Topeka Omni Group, a workspace and network that connects local founders with capital, coaching, and development pipelines like Kauffman FastTrac and Emerge with founders and entrepreneurs.
During this lunch we discussed the gaps this community navigates with government aid, understanding, and benefit requirements/regulations. These entrepreneurs are growing their businesses while remaining under financial constraints placed on people with disabilities to be able to scale a business that will actually allow them financial freedom and safety. We discussed how they could turn around and reach their hands out to help support their own communities. We brainstormed over prompts regarding under-served members in the community: what they could build if they actually had the support they needed and how we could resolve issues, removing hurdles that they surmount everyday despite their disabilities.
I sat there in awe, honored to be able to hear exactly what their daily struggles were, what their aspirations are, and how they are coping. The representative for the Omni-group mentioned that they didn’t know there was an entire subsection of disabled entrepreneurs and spent the entire time soaking up everything that was said to take back to Topeka to his workspace. He wanted to find ways to reach out to these entrepreneurs in his own spaces in Topeka. He shared a story about a newly disabled woman who came to Omni for community and how he had worked with Wesley to help her get a car, community, and a newly found passion for entrepreneurship. The Founder of Empower Network, Stephanie Swanson, made an impassioned request to the attendants to find ways to assist, collaborate, share a networking contact, or donate directly to help them support Kansas City Entrepreneurs with Disabilities. She is also looking for poets, illustrators, and graphic designers who identify as having a chronic illness or disability and would like to collaborate to produce an anthology showcasing local Kansas City disabled entrepreneurs and The Empower Network.
Walking alongside this community the last couple of months has opened my own eyes to how encouraging, motivational, and helpful this non-profit organization is quickly becoming in KC. It has brought a sense of relief, validation, and a shared human connection to know that Patricia and I are not alone in dreaming of a future where our chronic illness and disabilities will be honored in the workspace. Giving us hope, inspiration, and validation. We will continue to collect these stories with the intention that by the time we are finished, we will have created a KC anthology of a community that has found a way to stand against an age-old problem with entrepreneurship and determination.
