LUNA Community Care is the first disabled workers cooperative in the United States. Owned, governed and managed by worker-owners, with feedback from other members of our community, LUNA provides peer support services, education, training, advocacy and community events centered around neurodiversity and disability justice. It’s located in Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket.

“Our vision as an organization is to improve the quality of life for neurodivergent adults and to promote a shift in the culture, attitudes and acceptance of neurodivergent and disabled individuals in the community,” said Casey Gallagher co-founder & Executive Director of LUNA Community Care ahead of the ribbon cutting ceremony on Monday that officially launched the cooperative.

Gallagher, alongside co-founder Tara Boulais, Director of Volunteers and Peer Facilitation; Jeremiah Rainville, peer facilitator and Supervisor; and Sy Bedrick, peer facilitator and Program Coordinator, were joined by community members and organizers from Fuerza Laboral, for the ribbon cutting. Fuerza Laboral was instrumental in helping to organize LUNA as a worker’s cooperative.

In addition to offering LUNA as a neuro-affirming community space, the cooperative is also centered on affirming economic justice and intergenerational wealth for all of their disabled worker owners and facilitators by developing a system of payment that equitably serves disabled individuals who receive disability benefits and those who do not.

If you are interested in helping to support the efforts of LUNA, consider donating:

• Give Butter Campaign
• Amazon Wishlist
• LUNA also take donations of art and craft supplies, sensory items, board games, etc.

People who are interested in signing up for classes can do so at LUNA’s website here.

Shortly before the ribbon cutting, Uprise RI spoke to Casey Gallagher about their vision for LUNA, and about some of the issues facing neurodivergent people in our state.

Uprise RI: What is LUNA about?

Casey Gallagher: LUNA is a peer support space for neurodivergent adults and we are the first disabled workers cooperative in the United States.

Uprise RI: What does “disabled workers cooperative” mean?

Casey Gallagher: The best way to put it is that some people who are disabled have access to disability benefits that limit their income and other people who are disabled don’t have necessarily access to that. However, they might also struggle to work a nine to five job or have periods of burnout, which is something that I experienced working in the healthcare industry. What we wanted to do was create an equitable cooperative organization where, whether you are disabled and receive benefits or not, one can still be paid and paid equitably. Some people who are working here are going to get paid as 1099 contractors. But other people who might lose their benefits if they were to work and collect money from LUNA we can pay in different ways.

We can pay through an able account, which is a 401k for disabled individuals that doesn’t count against the income they bring in. We also can pay people with stipends and gift cards for the work they’re doing. We’re trying to make it more equitable for all disabled workers within a structure where we all understand each other and know each other’s needs. Together we can learn all the aspects of running a cooperative. If one of us is struggling more than other people we all can pick up and take over where they that left off.

Uprise RI: That makes sense, but how do you get money in?

Casey Gallagher: Great question. We have written quite a few grants and we’re in the process of hearing from a few places about grants. We received two very small but really meaningful grants from Social Enterprise Greenhouse and Fuerza Laboral. Thus far has been solely funded by myself and Tara, who is the other co-founder here. We are also going to be charging for our programming, at least to start. We offer everything on a sliding scale of $5 to $30 for most of our programs, although we do have one virtual group that’s free. Ideally when we get donations and grants, we will be able to offer more free programming. [See above for ways you can give.]

One of the things that people can think about is that if they donate $100 a month, that could potentially serve one person and all of the activities and groups that the person wanted to attend at LUNA. We really use this as a community based model of making sure that all the donations that we receive are going towards paying us as workers, but then also making sure that people who can’t afford to attend our programming can have accessibility in attending the programming or coming in for drop in support.

Uprise RI: Why did you decide on a business co-op as a model? It could have been organized in many other ways.

Casey Gallagher: I don’t ever want to work a nine to five job, but I need to get paid to survive. I also have to stay under a certain amount of income if I want to stay on Medicaid, which has been a blessing for me as a chronically ill and disabled individual. I spent about $25,000 in medical bills and insurance costs when I worked at Charter Care, the last year because I got very ill and lost some of my vision. This was the end of 2019. I really benefit from Medicaid. Here at LUNA I wanted to create a system that allows disabled individuals to access wealth equitably, but also teaches community members how to build that wealth themselves. I think the co-op model worked well because we all have a voice. We all have different abilities and different styles of being, but we are all working towards this goal of building ourselves some wealth for the future, while also creating a community where we can support one another with the work that we’re doing and support our community.

We really want the community to know about us because this is something that doesn’t exist and ultimately we want to train people or have people go through community health worker trainings so they can support other autistic and neurodivergent individuals in going to doctor’s appointments, in going to school, IEP meetings, and create this community of care where we can jump in and help each other. We also want to have a basic needs pantry in that closet, so if people need something or want to donate something, they can come in and access that.

Uprise RI: When you talk about programs and activities, what kind of things are we talking about?

Casey Gallagher: We mostly do support groups and special interest clubs. We have a wide range of activities and clubs. We do an LBGTQIAA Two Spirit plus and neuro divergent group because there’s such a significant crossover or correlation between gender divergence and neuro divergence. A lot of folks who are gender divergent also have come to realize that they’re also neurodivergent or vice versa. We really want to make space for that. All of our activities are queer and trans friendly. Three out of four of us who founded LUNA also identify as non-binary and trans so we are the community that’s leading programs for our community, which is important for us.

We do an artist and makers club. We’re going to have a mindfulness and coping skills group led by Jeremiah. We have a marginalized gender and autistic group, because again, people who are assigned female at birth are often not diagnosed or misdiagnosed, and don’t find out until they’re much older that they’re autistic or otherwise neurodivergent.

Uprise RI: I’ve heard that’s a problem.

Casey Gallagher: That was my experience. I’ve known that I had ADHD pretty much all of my life, but I discovered that I was autistic as well and had to self diagnose because there wasn’t really an appropriate person to assess me. On the side, as part of my own licensed practice, I do anti-ableist autism assessments and see people who are autistic or neurodivergent.

Uprise RI: What is you practice?

Casey Gallagher: I’m a licensed mental health counselor.

Uprise RI: That’s a tough thing to figure out about yourself.

Casey Gallagher: It was very difficult, but once it made sense, it made a lot of sense. I was able to understand myself a lot more I realized that this is the way that my brain is and it’s not anything that’s bad or wrong with me. The reason we created LUNA is so that people can come into a place and be with other neurodivergent individuals because we communicate really differently. We do different things, like when we’re stimming, and we wanted a place where people can come in and do all of that and be affirmed and recognized and celebrated for all of the ways that we act differently or think differently or communicate differently.

Uprise RI: Can I ask a personal question? Do you ever feel like you’re code switching when you have to talk to someone like me, right now?

Casey Gallagher: Yes. I masked for a lot of my life. I know that I’ve had other conversations with you or been at rallies and I think that I masked so much that I burnt myself out, because I didn’t know who I was, but I also just knew that there were a lot of things about me that weren’t typical and that I tried to fit into the box that capitalism had set for me. Once I realized that I wasn’t, I’ve tried really hard to not mask. It’s gotten a little bit easier, but I still do feel like I do some performativeness when I’m talking to people because that side of myself that was conditioned to act in that way. But I also love it when I’m here and I might wear clothing that I can like stim together and just allow myself to be myself.

Uprise RI: Can you tell me about stimming? Can you define that for me?

Casey Gallagher: Stimming is something that can often act as a sensory regulator. For some people it’s using fidgets or flapping our arms when we’re excited. That could be a stim, or spinning as a stim. A lot of times that’s been coached out of people because it doesn’t look like what we’ve deemed as typical behavior. It’s such a helpful thing to reconnect with those stims, especially if they were things you did in childhood that were conditioned out of you.

Uprise RI: So sometimes it’s tactile…

Casey Gallagher: Yeah. I really like to rub fabric together as a stim. I also used to play with my jewelry as a stim but I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I recognized more about myself.

Uprise RI: That’s really amazing.

Casey Gallagher: Not only are we offering this programming for the public and those who identify as neurodivergent, but I’ve already done some trainings for other businesses. I train them on ableism, disability justice, and neurodivergence and I do this sometimes for healthcare companies. One of the recent trainings that I did was around writing anti-ableist treatment plans that are more centered on the person instead of the treatment provider. Instead of basing it on the idea that in order to heal or to get better you must do things that are neurotypical, I look at what’s going to make your life more comfortable and how we can accommodate to your needs?

We also have somebody who is going to be running a healing based art workshop around substance use, but one that really explores your voice and is focused on the process and for some people that doesn’t mean following a 12 step program or eliminating all substances. It’s just about our recovery journey and harm reduction, and how we can view that through an anti-ableist lens or a non-pathologized lens.

Uprise RI: These are a lot of new terms for me. I’ll try to keep up.

Casey Gallagher: We want to our funders be in alignment with everything that we’re doing, making sure that LUNA is anti-oppressive, anti-carceral and that we are owning the work that we’re doing. We definitely need to raise a lot of funds, and at the same time, we are welcoming of community who want to come in and offer things or who want to come in and collaborate with us. That’s what’s making LUNA unique. This isn’t just my job or Jeremiah’s job or Tara’s job or Sy’s job. We’re part of the community and we benefit from the work that we’re doing. We also want everybody else has a voice in what they want to see in this community because the possibilities are endless

Here’s the video of LUNA’s ribbon cutting ceremony: