Annie Streit had a career as an interior designer all lined up but found a new purpose when she sustained a spinal cord injury. Today she devotes her time to educating children about disability and building a grassroots advocacy community around SCI/D.
The Path She Was Meant to Go Down
Annie Streit, 38, knows the exact moment she gained some much-needed perspective on her SCI.
The Angola, Indiana, resident was sitting in her room at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana opens a new window when she looked out the window, noticed the cars driving by on the interstate and had the thought that would guide the next phase of her life: “Life in the world is still going on. It doesn’t stop, no matter what I was going through in that moment,” says Streit. “That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to let my spinal cord injury define who I was.”
It was that outlook that now allows her to describe her rehabilitation as “a fantastic experience” and helps her maintain friendships to this day with many of those who worked with her on that journey.
Her accident occurred on the night of her college graduation. She was on the verge of taking a job as an interior designer, and a firm held a position for her while she recovered. But dealing with her new injury — C5 quadriplegia from a shallow dive she’d done many times before — made her realize she needed to switch gears.
“I wanted to continue moving forward and make a shift to figure out what I wanted to pursue,” says Streit. She liked telling her story and speaking to other newly injured people, so she went back to school for teaching.
She completed student teaching — but getting up at 4 a.m. and then not leaving her chair again until 9:30 p.m. led to issues with pressure sores. That’s when she found a job as a youth development coordinator at the local YMCA, working four hours a day.
While there, she started writing children’s books to better connect with the younger kids in the program. As her life as an author took off, she sought out a more flexible job. Her current position as manager of grassroots advocacy at United Spinal Association fits that bill.
“I feel more confident now in who I am and what my purpose is — more than I ever did walking on two feet. What I do now is so fulfilling,” says Streit. “I loved interior design, but I feel my accident directed me down this path of what I was meant to do.”
In addition to finding meaning in advocacy, she loves talking with children from elementary school to high school in the Indiana area about her life with SCI, reading them her three children’s books opens a new window and teaching them to not be afraid of disability. She knows she’s making a difference.
“Especially when I talk to the younger kids, just the look in their eyes and their questions or how they want to come up and give me a hug,” she says. “When I see them out and about and they feel comfortable coming up to me — that means a lot because I want them to have that comfort level around a person who has a disability. I want them to be able to see past disability. That’s been my whole goal.”
In her first year as a student teacher, her own comfort level was tested. “It was really scary at first, the thought of how am I going to manage this classroom full of high schoolers from a wheelchair?” says Streit. “I felt like I wouldn’t have the authority or anything like that, but I just kind of took a deep breath and did it.”
That gung-ho approach has served Streit well. “That’s kind of how I look at a lot of things in life now: Even if you’re not too sure about it, you can’t just sit back and let the opportunity pass you by — you’ve got to give it a try.”
Helping People Grow
Streit’s role as an educator doesn’t end after a motivational speaking engagement, especially when she faces ignorance and discrimination out in public.
“If something happens to me, or somebody says something, they don’t usually mean it to be rude. I always try to educate instead of getting upset. A lot of people are just unaware. They don’t mean to say something in a way that’s insensitive, but sometimes it comes out that way. I’ve always tried to educate, help people grow and understand.
I think a lot of times it works. It’s funny because people often get really fired up when I’m in a parking lot and they’ve parked in an area where my ramp is supposed to come down. My mom and I have kindly explained it to them. We weren’t upset with them. We were just trying to explain, ‘That area is for the lift.’ Even though they got upset with us, I bet that’s the last time they park in a striped area.”
What I Do At United Spinal: As the grassroots advocacy manager, one of my top priorities is to manage all the advocates across the U.S. for Untied Spinal. It’s a way for me to connect with the advocates and relay information and resources to them. On top of that, it’s how we build a national advocacy network that can fight for the changes our community needs.
Top Advocacy Goal: I’m a big proponent of increasing the wage limit in regard to Social Security and Medicaid.
Advocacy Approach: Hosting “Meet an Advocate” live streams on the United Spinal Association Advocacy Network Facebook Page has allowed me to see and discuss the issues advocates are working on across the country. When I bring advocates on the stream, it gives them the chance to share what they are working on and educate others and empower them to follow in their tracks.
