How a philanthropist’s jury duty service led to decades of supporting brain injury patients
Faye Straus, 78, discovered her decades-long passion for helping adults with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) through the most mundane of circumstances—jury duty. As a juror on a personal injury trial in the late 1990s, Straus learned about a man who had suffered a moderate to severe brain injury after falling from a scaffold.
“What struck me was the lack of services available for people with a brain injury,” Straus says now. “It was like they fell through the cracks—they weren’t developmentally disabled, they weren’t mentally ill. There was really not a lot available.”
During the jury stint, Straus also learned about Mt. Diablo Adult Education School’s Adults with Disabilities (ADW) Program, and specifically its On Track Program, which helps adults with TBIs as well as acquired brain injuries (ABI). ABIs can be the result of strokes or brain tumors, while TBIs are caused by external force, such as a car accident or a fall.
Once the trial ended, Straus reached out to the On Track Program and offered to lend financial support through the Firedoll Foundation, a private organization she’d founded with her husband, Sandor.
“What struck me was the lack of services available for people with a brain injury. It was like they fell through the cracks.”
Faye Straus, Co-founder, The Firedoll Foundation
Established in 1998 and named after the couple’s two cats, Fireworks and Dolly, the Firedoll Foundation has five areas of philanthropic focus: community development, environmental conservation, immigration and human rights, Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and brain injury.
For more than 25 years, the Firedoll Foundation has funded many of On Track’s initiatives. This includes buying computers for a lab and paying a part-time student support services specialist who works one-on-one with students and their families on a variety of skills outside the classroom. Those skills include training to teach students how to take public transit to school and assistance in obtaining disability benefits.
The Firedoll Foundation also purchased a van for the program, which allows students to go outside the classroom and volunteer in the community.
“You lose your identity when you can’t do the things that you used to be able to do,” Straus says, adding that the volunteer opportunities can help the students with brain injuries build a new identity.
Straus also serves on the On Track Program’s advisory board and stays up-to-date with the program’s accomplishments.
“It’s one of the meetings that I look forward to because they’re committed to the students and constantly looking for ways to improve the program and service students more effectively,” Straus says.
On Track runs the majority of the year, combining remote and in-person learning a few days per week. It’s also just one of several of Mt. Diablo Adult Education’s AWD offerings. Others include the Life Skills Program, which services adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities; and the Transition Options Program, which prepares adults on the autism spectrum disorder for higher education, employment, and independent living.
Straus says she believes Mt. Diablo serves as a great example of how adult education programs can help people with disabilities and beyond, since they have funding streams that are more reliable than other programs that rely solely on donations and grants.
“This model of utilizing adult education is really something that could be replicated in other areas as well,” Straus says.
For more information on Mt. Diablo Adult Education School’s Adult with Disabilities On Track Program visit https://mdae.mdusd.org/programs/awd
Written by Jimmy Flynn
| Regions | Classes & Topics |
|---|---|
| Bay Area California | Life Skills |
