"Dan on the Street" was created as a community segment within our "GRACE 10314" webseries. The webseries and "Dan segment" filled a need within GRACE to provide inclusion for our GRACE participants -- all diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder to be part of our community. The series is a diversity program that advocates peer based, on the job training. We created an opportunity for our partiicipants to interview our community philanthropists , business owners, leaders, etc. along with our host Dan Ryan from SI Media Group (SILive.com). The show became an instant hit with or community because it gave our participants a platform and a voice to be heard. Autism is not just a day. Autism is not a disability. It's the ability to see things in beautiful and unique ways. Often individuals with autism are marginalized because of the lack of understanding the abilities one does have with ASD and the different aspects one can bring to the table.
"Dan on the Street" is a unique, mostly informative, truly heartwarming depiction of honest conversation with our star co-hosts from GRACE all diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and our community. The uniqueness of the segments is that we pride ourselves on bridging the gap between the neurodiverse community, and educating the community that ASD does not define a person. Some of our participants write the questions, some are in front of the camera, while others are behind the scene. The show revolves around empowering all those living with ASD and giving them all the opportunity to work side by side with our community . "Dan on the Street" became a collaborative effort between GRACE as a non-profit and SI Media Group (with SI Advance and SI Live) together as a team to bring digital content delivered by Dan Ryan from SI Media Group and our GRACE particpants to the community. The print and video combo allows both a catchy jingle to engage our audience of readers and listeners and also allows our community to get their story out to our audience while captivating the very essence of what our participants want to add - whether a serious question or a complete random fun anecdote. We also created a marketing campaign that drives readers and consumers from our community's leading news and media provider (SILive) where articles with the indviduale video episodes live. This was to engage them with the content wrtten about the project, and get people watching and engaging with the content. We have given the individuals that are part of the program a voice in main stream media.
The team has produced 35 short segments for the Season One campaign. In each segment we rounded up a diverse group of community leaders, business owners and advocates and created content that gave our community the chance to talk about their business and community outreach efforts, but most important a chance for our participants to interview and be part of the community around them. As the show progressed, our participants engaged more and more with various community reps and acclimated to various skills such as interviewing, camera work and editing that they would not have an opportunity to encounter. The collaborative effort between GRACE and the Staten Island Media Group enabled our participants a larger platform to embrace their unique abilities are and not marginalize them. This has also given tremendous exposure to the foundation and has driven interest in new and future participants. It is also motivating other organizations to do more modern and mainstream offerings for the autistic community. Season 2 has been sponsored by Empire State Bank.
