— 2024 Unity Award Recipient —
Danielle Hernandez-Miller
Austin, MN
Ms. Hernandez-Miller is very dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities by creating inclusive programing for individuals from birth to age 22. With Peer Power Partners, a mentoring program that matches students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, she has promoted bullying prevention, celebrating National Bullying Prevention Month and Unity Day. This program also celebrates individuality and physical differences as well as the importance of friendship and being inclusive. Ms. Hernandez-Miller has taken programs for individuals that have disabilities and made them known in the community. She is such a great asset to not only Peer Power Partners and Mower County life, she also believes all individuals should be treated equally, with respect and dignity. She is a true rare find for the community.
Nominated by Joddy Tighe
How do you help build UNITY
in your community?
I believe that I help build unity in my community through collaboration, creating awareness through education, and creating inclusive social and learning opportunities through the programs I facilitate within it. When I create an activity, I am mindful of adapting it to the various needs of the students. My goal is to educate students within the Peer Power Partners program that I oversee, to promote a better understanding of differences among their peers and themselves, to become advocates for one another, and to create lasting friendships. Peer Power Partners is a peer mentoring program implemented at the intermediate school, middle school, and high school levels in my community. By educating and teaching students to be accepting of one another it promotes a positive culture within our schools and community for years to come. The skills learned are invaluable and will be utilized lifelong. Through the youth programs that I also create and facilitate at LIFE Mower County, youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities are given the opportunity to learn, play, and create lasting friendships within a safe place, just as their typically developing peers have. These activities not only connect youth participants but also their siblings and families. By collaborating with other community agencies, we as a whole, are able to reach more families, create awareness, and gain support throughout our community. One smaller initiative I have done to help build unity in my community is collaborating to provide books within the Little Free Library here at LIFE Mower County, that depict children with differences within the stories, so children who read these books will learn to recognize and be more accepting of differences among peers. I also hope these books prompt youth to ask their parents questions and allow for meaningful conversations about the differences they have read about.
Danielle Hernandez-Miller
