 | SNAPS volunteer Thomas Dolan '05, who is also the organization's president, is pictured here with Drew Alt '05, who turned to SNAPS after injuring his leg while sledding. |
After breaking her leg last semester during an off-campus club soccer game, Yale sophomore Rosario Doriott felt pretty helpless.
Dizzy and sleepy from the medication she was taking for the severe pain, and urged to stay off her leg until a complete diagnosis was made, Doriott spent about two weeks confined to her room in Ezra Stiles College. Since she was unable to attend classes, she arranged through the Resource Office on Disabilities for people to take notes for her.
While this support kept Doriott from falling too far behind in her schoolwork, the Yale student quickly discovered how difficult life could be in her circumstances. She would ask a friend to bring her a daily sandwich from the dining hall at dinnertime, but, reluctant to ask anyone else for favors, was skipping both breakfast and lunch. Laundry was piling up.
Doriott once again called the Resource Office on Disabilities, and learned about an undergraduate organization called Special Needs Awareness and Peer Services (SNAPS), which caters to the day-to-day needs of Yale students who are permanently or temporarily disabled, injured or ill.
Learning of SNAPS felt like a lifesaver to the injured Doriott, who, living in a single room, couldn't even rely on a roommate for help with small chores.
She sent an e-mail to SNAPS volunteer Olivia Ciacci '05, who happily washed Doriott's laundry.
"She even folded everything, and she smiled the entire time," recalls Doriott. "It was really, really nice. It wasn't awkward. It wasn't bizarre. It was just so helpful."
The Yale sophomore was equally amazed when she learned that SNAPS volunteers could come each morning to bring her breakfast, and again at lunchtime bearing sandwiches and fruit. Eating regularly, Doriott found, helped ease some of the side effects of her pain medication.
SNAPS was founded in 2002 by Yale graduate Sabrina Sadique '04 after she had suffered a foot injury that forced her to use crutches for a lengthy period. While the Resource Office on Disabilities does assist permanently or temporarily disabled graduate or undergraduate students with their academic pursuits (providing special transportation, books on tape, adaptive computer technology, Braille, scribes, visual interpreters, and more), many of these same students require help with daily chores and other non-academic concerns.
Sadique, who majored in both chemistry and English, found that traveling on crutches back and forth from the center of campus to Science Hill was difficult, particularly while carrying weighty book bags. She also realized that simple chores -- picking up a course packet, doing laundry, getting groceries or meals, borrowing or returning library books, traversing hills -- could be incredibly challenging to anyone with a disability, and she wanted to find a way to help.
Some 65 Yale undergraduate SNAPS volunteers now provide such help seven days a week. They commit to volunteer at least one hour weekly between the hours of 8 a.m. to midnight. SNAPS coordinates its services with the Resource Office on Disabilities under the supervision of Judith York, director of the office, who relays requests for assistance from the students registered with her office. SNAPS then dispatches a volunteer who is slotted for that particular time to help the student in need. College deans and masters, as well as freshmen counselors, also make referrals to SNAPS, and students can also make direct contact with the organization via its website (www.yale.edu/snaps/).
"SNAPS is a critical complement to the Resource Office on Disabilities," says York. "Where the Resource Office supports the academic needs of students with permanent and temporary injuries and illnesses, SNAPS supports the remaining hours and obligations of a student's life on campus. When I tell students and parents about SNAPS, I encourage them to make contact so the students won't put too much burden on friends for help. Since SNAPS has been in operation, there are a lot fewer worries. It's great to see so many students who really want to help."
Thomas Dolan '05, who this year succeeded Sadique as SNAPS president, admits that volunteering for the organization is "not the most glamorous" kind of work.
"We help with a lot of mundane chores like laundry or busing someone's food tray in the dining hall, changing someone's bed sheets, carrying backpacks, helping someone in a wheelchair up hills or escorting someone to a doctor's appointment," says Dolan. "It's not saving the world. But those of us who do it want to be of help, and it is personally gratifying to know that sometimes, just by assisting someone with the simplest of things, we have made life immeasurably easier for them." In addition to providing peer support, another SNAPS mission is to help raise public awareness about issues students with special needs face.
Many SNAPS volunteers became involved with the organization after experiencing an injury or illness themselves or because they know a family member or friend with a disability. Dolan, for example, witnessed the various special challenges his mother had to face because of a visual impairment.
"Her vision was worse when she was in college than it is now, but she told me stories that revealed how dependent she was on friends at that time," says Dolan. "So much so that if someone didn't come and get her, she was just stranded. It is a humbling experience to have to depend on people to that extent."
Since Ciacci joined SNAPS, she has come to appreciate people's reluctance to ask for support.
"Watching a friend refuse almost all help during cancer [treatment] really brought home how hard it is to even ask," says the Yale senior. "It's good that there is an organization so people aren't embarrassed to ask."
Diego Rotalde '05, a current SNAPS volunteer who did not seek help from SNAPS after having knee surgery last year, recalls that he didn't feel "entitled" to ask for help from friends. He became depressed during his recovery, in part due to some of the burdens he experienced while attempting to get through his days without anyone's assistance.
"Although I was aware that this was a major invasive surgery, I completely underestimated the effect it would have on my personal and academic life," says Rotalde, who plays intramural soccer for Morse College.
"Some of us are not used to asking for help," he continues. "When you are on crutches you inevitably have to negotiate between asking for help or going through an extra amount of effort to perform the same daily chores. How much extra effort is enough though -- that is the question."
In retrospect, Rotalde says, his recovery might have been easier had he reached out for help, and from his perspective as a volunteer, he hopes that others take full advantage of SNAPS services.
"I acknowledge the pride element in overcoming injury, and I value it since it helped me get back into shape and playing soccer again," he says. "But I feel there are unnecessary hardships that can and should be avoided, especially since there are so many willing bodies eager to help."
Dolan says that one aim of SNAPS is to "erase the awkwardness of asking for help.
"We help people feel that it's not a big deal; we stress that we are here to help, and we aim to please," Dolan says.
Approximately 50 students use SNAPS services yearly, but word of the service is spreading, according to Dolan. One way the group publicizes its services is by passing out stickers and cards to people on campus who seem to be struggling with a specific disability or injury.
"There are many students on campus who could use our services but don't, and that's their prerogative," says Dolan. "Of course, we don't want to feel that there is a huge need for us. But we do want to feel that anyone
Dolan says that in the year since he has presided over the group, SNAPS has gotten very positive feedback from the students who have utilized the volunteer help.
Senior Mattias Sparrow, who relied on SNAPS volunteers for a two-week period because of an injury, is one such client.
"SNAPS was amazing," he comments. "A volunteer came and met with me to go over my schedule. Then volunteers met me before and after every class to carry my bag. This was extremely helpful, as I would not have been able to carry it otherwise."
"In a small way, we are doing something amazing," says Dolan. "Just seeing how thankful a person is because someone carried his or her backpack just shows how it's the little things -- the small ways of helping -- that can make all the difference."
Doriott, who was far from her home in Indiana when she was injured, concurs that SNAPS is a "great deal," and that the volunteers helped to relieve a lot of the stress she felt while she was immobile.
"SNAPS was there for all the things that weren't academic," she comments. "If I needed laundry done, it'd be done; if I needed groceries, they could get them for me. I was taken care of in every domain. SNAPS was like a super mom!"
-- By Susan Gonzalez
T H I S
Volunteers lend support to
students with special needs
who could benefit from our help feels comfortable coming to us."
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