Delores Sallis was one of a room full of VIPs in Washington for the Communities in Action event. The half-day forum brought local elected officials and community leaders to the White House to highlight investments made under the administration and their impacts in communities throughout the country.
"This has been a great day for me," Sallis said. "And I'll never forget it. It's gonna be in my future forever."
Sallis got the opportunity to talk with White House officials about her longtime service in an often-underserved community of Milwaukee. For years, she’s been an ardent advocate for support for people with special needs. The adoption of her son, Albert, inspired her passion.
"I was a strong advocate for Albert,” Sallis said. “I wanted him to have the best of everything.”
Albert developed multiple disabilities as a toddler. Sallis said she learned many lessons through caring for him, and decided to pass along those lessons to other parents in need.
"[Seeing that] a lot of kids didn't have the services that advocate for them, I started a business called Parent University,” Sallis told Spectrum News. “Where people could come there and be safe and happy and feel trusted in the neighborhood with their disabilities and their families and we'll support them.”
Through her work, she would often cross paths with Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities (BPDD), even participating in their leadership programs. She was even appointed by the governor to serve a four-year term on the board.
“We just feel so strongly about the importance of supporting people in their communities, who really know their communities well, and have that trust, and that ability to deliver right in the community,” Beth Swedeen, the Executive Director of the state-run program, told Spectrum News. “And Dolores is solid gold that way.”
Much like her work in her community, Sallis fought hard for Albert until he passed away in 2021 from underlying health issues. His death happened at the height of the pandemic. So, while she was devastated, she knew she could not be deterred in her mission to keep supporting families like hers. She partnered again with BPDD to keep her work going.
"When the Biden-Harris Administration had some additional dollars available for COVID outreach work in the disability community, we really wanted to go into the communities that have been kind of double hit, which are the communities of color who also experienced disability," Swedeen said. "We reached out and Delores was one of our grant recipients, and she just went to town doing her Delores magic.”
Sallis said her vaccine outreach efforts faced the challenge of skepticism spanning different generations.
"The vaccine came out, and people was like, ‘no, no, no, I don't trust that. I don't trust that,'" Sallis said. "Well, I had a few words with them and they started trusting.”
One way she convinced people to get the shot was offering to trade them a home cooked meal for the jab.
“I started doing soul food dinners: roll up your sleeves and get your dinner," she said. "And then when we started on the kids, I would take them to the pharmacy myself and then take them across the street to the Golden Corral."
2,500 COVID-19 shots later, she was sharing her magic at the White House, getting praise from top officials for the feat while advocating for the continued work BPDD is doing.
“Without BPDD, I wouldn’t be here,” Sallis told Spectrum News. “By them being a partner with me, I’m still able to walk in my purpose and help people with disabilities.”
Swedeen believes Sallis’ work is not only invaluable, it’s also a touching tribute to her late son.
“I’ve said this to her several times. I’m like ‘you know, this is really Albert’s legacy and it’s moving many years past his passing,” Swedeen said. “But it's also continuing to impact hundreds, if not thousands of people and it's saving lives.”