Vision

One day, all people with disabilities and impairments will be able to communicate freely without limitations due to differences in political orientation, disability type, communication style, or geography.

Mission

To provide a world-class, online, user-friendly, apolitical, and free information exchange that serves, and is accessible to, all people with disabilities (PWD) as well as their family and friends; that is continually designed and revised by PWD for PWD; and, that is abundant in consumerism but relatively free of commercialism.

Who is Skip?

That's him — Alfred H. "Skip" DeGraff, Ph.D.. In case you're wondering, he was born with the nickname. He's a C 5/6, spinal cord injured quadriplegic who's used motorized wheelchair mobility and PA assistance for about 40 years. He experienced a diving injury on Martha's Vineyard when he was 18. In 1975, he founded and was the first 10-year director of the Department of Disability Services at Boston University. Next, he was the CEO of two independent living centers in Upstate New York. Ever heard of the Saratoga Cycle? He was next the original designer and manufacturer for 13 years. He's also the author and publisher of the 512-page book, Caregivers and Personal Assistants: How to Find, Hire, and Manage The People Who Help You (Or Your Loved One!). In 2006, he finished full-time studies to earn a doctorate in human rehabilitation and disability studies at the UNColorado. After using Craig's List, he decided a similar, interactive Web site would offer many communication benefits to our disability culture. And that's how Skip's List was started.

Who else powers Skip's List?

To ensure the List fairly represents and respects people with a variety of disabilities, Skip has recruited a well-rounded Advisory Board, most of whom have disabilities.

Why was Skip's List created?

When the Katrina hurricane required the mass evacuation of PWD from New Orleans, Skip heard several stories about people who used wheelchair mobility being forced to leave their wheelchairs behind because of lack of space on planes and busses. In theory, many of these people were transported to nursing homes and hospitals where they remained in bed for lack of available wheelchairs. In response, Skip cleaned up a spare motorized wheelchair, charged up the batteries, and otherwise prepped the chair for shipping to some desperate person who was truly confined to a nursing home bed. The only missing link was to identify and locate someone with such a need. He made a variety of attempts through the Red Cross and other organizations, but to no avail. A year later, his spare chair still called out for a new owner. What's needed was a national -- albeit international -- information exchange where someone in need of a wheelchair, or someone willing to donate or sell a wheelchair, could easily and efficiently post her/his needs.

In another story, Skip lives in a very accessible Colorado home and might need to sell this current house and find another in a new locale. A realtor has told him that there seems to be no efficient way to advertise nationally an accessible home to an appreciative market. Consequently, a typical able-bodied (A-B) buyer would probably find the specially built ramps and bathroom facilities to be detriments that should be removed before the house is listed. What a shame. In a similar way, he would be searching for an accessible home in another area. Once more, there seems to be no information exchange for advertising the sale or purchase of an accessible house.

While pondering these real-life situations, Skip became acquainted with Craig's List - an incredibly simple concept proven to be an incredibly powerful way to use the Internet. In essence, Craig's List provides two types of free services - classified ads and threaded discussion forums. Today, 10 years after its establishment, Craig's List gets 10 million postings and 4 billion page views monthly. While Skip's List might never achieve such numbers, it should be able to avail its users with very similar power and efficiency of communication and community.