Surfside Beach SC WPDE — The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, caused outrage during an address on Thursday, claiming autistic children are severely limited in their capacities and can’t perform basic tasks like “pay taxes, hold a job, write a poem, go out on a date, and use a toilet unassisted.”
David Leperi is part of the disabled community as a person with Down syndrome.
He works at Memory Lane Thrift and Gift Store, a nonprofit thrift store in Surfside Beach that hires people with autism and other intellectual disabilities.
Leperi has a girlfriend, as well as a black belt in karate, and he said RFK Jr’s remarks made him sad.
“I feel good about myself, I have found respect for myself, and I take care of myself just fine,” Leperi said.
David’s parents agree that having a disability or having special needs doesn’t make someone any less of a person.
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“They can have jobs, they can get married, they can go to the food store, David has a driver’s license,” David’s father Dave Leperi said.
And while David may have faced different challenges in his life than some of his classmates, his parents, Dave and Arlene Leperi, said it’s been a joy watching him grow up and accomplish so many things.
“At 7 months, David started programs, we worked with him daily, his sister worked with him, to help him develop into who he is today. We never told him he could not. Anything he wanted to try we let him try,” Arlene Leperi said.
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Memory Lane’s Thrift and Gift Store founder, Kevin Andrews, said RFK Jr’s remarks about people with autism is not representative of those he works with daily who have special needs.
Andrews said they can do and be anything they want to be, and that the health secretary’s comments were misguided.
“He’s coming from a place of misinformation and ignorance, and I think the epidemic in our country is we have an epidemic of ignorance and intolerance. we need to understand that individuals that are different are not different in the sense of what they can do and achieve,” Andrews said.
The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for inclusivity for the disabled and special needs communities, also publicly denounced RFK Jr’s comments, saying they dehumanize autistic people and promote the idea that autistic people are undesirable, lack value or need to be eradicated.
The Memory Lane Thrift and Gift Store in Surfside Beach also works to help those with Alzheimer’s and Dementia.
You can find out more about their mission and how to donate by clicking here
