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A Visit to Washington: From Nathan’s View

By Nathan Bauer, Self-Advocate for The Arc and Hammer

Thank you for inviting me to share a blog about my trip to Washington DC for Hammer to meet with my friend the great Senator, Al Franken. He is my friend. When I was at The Arc Minnesota town hall at Hammer to testify with Al Franken we had a chance to get to know each other. He talked with me again at Special Olympics and it was just the two of us. We laughed and told jokes. After that Al Franken came to my house for a visit. I showed him around. He asked me to come to Washington to help him advocate for disability rights.

Rena came to my house that day for a Hammer story and she interviewed us for the news on KARE 11. [A quote from Nathan in the interview about the possible budget cuts: “And we going to talk to national leaders at The Capitol and we going to talk about the budget, the money and we don’t need no more cuts.”]

My Mom, Dad, Tim and Lynne from Hammer, and Adrian our cameraman – we all flew to Washington to see Senator Franken and film. That is when I got to visit The Arc’s national office. Thank you to The Arc for showing us how to get to the press conference for the ABLE act and being so nice to my friends and me. Thank you – Peter, Kristen, Sarah, Marty, Maureen, Pat and William.