Kearns Honors Paratransit Advocate with First-Ever
Erie County Clerk’s Community Service Award

Erie County, NY- Erie County Clerk Michael P. Kearns recently presented the first-ever Erie County Clerk’s Community Service Award to Stephanie Speaker, in honor of her years of service as a community volunteer as well as her advocacy for persons with disabilities.

"By loving our neighbors as ourselves, the better off we're going to be," Kearns stated. "Not only as a community but as a country. And now with COVID-19 and everything that's going on, I'm hoping people soften up a little bit and we really look out for each other."

Ms. Speaker’s work to increase the distance that paratransit can travel beyond a bus stop so that persons with disabilities would have improved access. She has worked tirelessly the last six years for state legislation and it is rightly named, “Stephanie’s Bill”. It is currently waiting on a sponsor in the New York State Assembly’s majority caucus in order to be put forward.

The presentation ceremony was held in the County Clerk’s Ceremonial Conference Room at Old County Hall in front of Stephanie’s friends, colleagues and family members including her parents, Kenneth and Patricia Speaker and her brother, Jeffrey Speaker.

Her volunteerism includes Feed More WNY (14 years), Lancaster Food Pantry, St. Andrews Consignment Shop and the Red Cross, to her active membership in the Auxiliary Unit 187 of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, along with her tireless activism on behalf of the disabled community as a member of Voice Buffalo and the Self Advocacy Association of New York State as well as being appointed by the Governor to the Developmental Disabilities Advisory Council.