By Katherine Schneider, for the CVPost In this space, since early in the pandemic, Kathie Schneider has offered hope, heart and occasional bits of humor. Her columns began on a weekly basis and now will be posted periodically. Kathie writes from the perspective of a retired Chippewa Valley clinical psychologist, blind from birth. She will continue to deal with some aspects of the coronavirus pandemic but will also focus on broader topics at times. This column is one of those with a broader focus. Kathie notes that Monday (July 26) was the 31st anniversary of the passage by Congress of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and goes into some detail about four actions she is taking both to mark the anniversary and to advocate for some changes in local procedures. As readers of her column are well aware, Kathie has been a strong voice in advocating for meeting the needs of disabled individuals. That community includes some 61 million adults nationally. That’s according to 2019 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and represents about 26% of the total U.S. population. A deeper dive into the CDC’s data shows that, in 2019, some 21% of Wisconsin residents over the age of 18 had some type of disability. That translates to some 993,000 people, who live with cognitive, mobility, hearing, vision, self-care and/or independent living disabilities. Those statistics don’t account for people living with more than one disability. Cognitive and mobility disabilities are the most common in Wisconsin, according to these figures, To read about how Kathie is approaching the ADA’s 31st anniversary, please click on the headline.