Who belongs on Vashon-Maury Island?

How we answer that question is less about what we say and more about what we do.

If we believe working class families belong here, we must create housing, childcare, and other social infrastructure that supports them.

If we believe young adults belong here, we must create healthy, enriching social activities and meaningful, well-paying jobs for them.

Children and adults who are neurodivergent, differently-abled or disabled, or who otherwise have special needs, live here too. And if we believe they belong here — that they deserve a full life and that they enrich the lives of those around them — then their voices must be heard, too.

That’s why the joint effort by Vashon Park District and the Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) to host a sensory-friendly Easter Egg hunt at Ober Park this year, as detailed in our page 1 story, matters.

It tells kids: You are not an afterthought. You are precious to us, and we will ensure your life is as rich as any other.

And it tells adults: To be treated with respect, dignity and equality is the baseline. It is not a privilege — it is what you deserve.

The beauty of these efforts is that their success can make us more ambitious. You might look around the island and start noticing narrow, precarious sidewalks or events too overwhelming for some to participate. Empathy often means wondering: “How would I navigate this space if my mind or my body worked differently?”

And as is often pointed out, almost everyone will eventually have a disability or special need of some kind, if they are lucky enough to live to old age. Your investments in others’ health and joy are likely to benefit you one day, too.

Model programs exist, such as the University of Washington’s Haring Center for Inclusive Education, which operates the Experimental Education Unit — a comprehensive early childhood school for children with, and without disabilities. Just like last weekend’s Ober Park egg hunt, it happened because caring people saw a need to serve their neighbors and their community.

These programs operate on an idea which is simple, yet nonetheless is sometimes deemed radical in our culture: What if people without disabilities treated people with disabilities as equals, intertwined their lives with them, grew with them — and in the end, both people learned something new about themselves?