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While the challenges continue, so do the good works done by our neighbors, our teachers, our health care providers, our volunteers and so many others. This is their story. Ledyard National Bank is proud to support the 2022 Hometown Heroes, who were nominated by members of the community and selected by editors of the Concord Monitor. Nominate your Hometown Hero Today. |
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| | Hometown Heroes: For two decades, couple fought side by side for disability rights
By TEDDY ROSENBLUTH Monitor staff
Sarah Koutroubas’ son was only a toddler when he was first denied the resources he needed for his disability.
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| Her son was diagnosed with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, a rare genetic condition that required intensive speech, occupational and physical therapy. Community Bridges, a Concord nonprofit that serves people with disabilities, told her they could only see her son once a week.
Sarah, who was then working as a hairdresser, resolved to wait in the lobby of the nonprofit until they agreed to provide the care that medical professionals advised.
“See my child when you say that you can’t provide this care,” she said. “Tell him that he may not walk until he’s much older because I can’t give him what he needs.”
After several days of Sarah and her crying baby in the lobby, the nonprofit gave in. Impressed with her tenacity, Community Bridges also offered her a part-time job in 2005.
Over the next several years, Sarah encountered several more injustices, like when her son was diagnosed with cancer and couldn’t find a health insurance company because of his genetic syndrome. But at Community Bridges, she could work full time to change the systemic problems with the system.
That’s how first met her now-husband, Alex Koutroubas, a lobbyist with Dennehy & Bouley who was already involved in disability-rights issues.
Since then, they each make up one part of an advocacy power couple. Alex uses his deep understanding of the statehouse to strategize the best ways to push legislation through.
Sarah expertly explains complicated topics and rallies the community to advocate for issues important to them.
For more than two decades they’ve used this dynamic to make meaningful changes to the lives of Granite Staters with disabilities.
In 2007, the couple tirelessly worked on a piece of legislation that would help eliminate the waiting list for developmental services.
Alex helped draft the bill and shepherded it through the House and Senate. Sarah organized groups from the community to testify at hearings.
Despite a hefty financial ask, the bill was signed into law and virtually eliminated the waiting list since 2011.
During the height of the pandemic, Sarah used her connections in the governor’s office to help start a stipend program for long-term care workers.
Part of her motivation came from her own staff’s experience during the pandemic. Sarah remembered staff moving in with their clients who tested positive for COVID-19, even if that meant spending Christmas apart from their own families.
“These folks don’t make a lot of money,” she said. “When you’re making $15 an hour and you’re willing to give up at least two full weeks of your time on a major holiday: that’s why I advocate. There’s just so much compassion.”
Sarah’s son is now twenty years old and graduated from Lakes Region Community College with a degree in electrical work.
Sarah is confident that if he son were born today in New Hampshire, he would have had an easier time getting access to the resources he needed, in part due to the advocacy work the couple has done.
That’s what motivates them to keep going, she said.
“It’s just it’s incredibly hard and lonely to be a parent of a child with a disability,” she said. “It’s scary and I don’t want other people to have to feel that way unnecessarily. For me, there’s always something that we can do to improve the lives of the people that we serve.”
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