Members of The Arc of Warren County community will be traveling to Trenton on March 19 to be honored at the Statehouse for Disability Awareness Month for their winning entry in a statewide poster contest themed “Our Time to Shine.”

The winning entry was submitted to The Arc of New Jersey and created by five individuals.  Carrine Buzzuto, The Arc of Warren County’s Training Coordinator, and Group Home Manager Linda Gunter provided support for this project.

The winning poster will be the centerpiece of the annual Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month event at Goldfinch Square in the Statehouse later this month. Legislators from all over the state will have the opportunity to learn about the contest, see the poster, and meet its creators.

“This is a wonderful win for the entire agency,” said Buzzuto.  “This poster shows that we should promote inclusion, freedom, strengths and ability for individuals with DD, so we destroy old circumstances and ideas of institutions, exclusion, labels and disabilities.  The result is beautiful, and it is ‘our time to shine.’”

The New Jersey Self-Advocacy Project, which is a program housed within The Arc of New Jersey, recently managed the Disabilities Awareness Month poster contest. All New Jersey chapters of The Arc were encouraged to participate. The Warren County chapter received 13 entries.  Members of the self-advocacy group voted on the submissions and chapter administrators casted their votes in case of a tie.