At our Living Well Disability Services Transforming Lives Gala on August 15, we will showcase the annual Dreammaker Award winners. All four winners will be celebrated for their hard work, building awareness for the disability community and using their voices as a platform for advocacy. You already met Greg Solie, our Volunteer Dreammaker; Beth Ryan and Family, our Donor Dreammakers; and GAP School, a program of Change Inc, our Community Partner winner. Today we are happy to introduce Rodney Kaufer, our 2025 Self Advocate Dreammaker winner!
Our self-advocates are the people who call Living Well home and epitomize what it means to be of service to self, all while making sure their needs are met physically and emotionally with intention and kindness. To be a self-advocate is to stand up for your needs and showcase what you want most out of your life. This is not always easy for people, and therefore is worthy of celebration.
Rodney has been with Living Well for seven years and lives at our Poppler home. He was born and raised in St. Paul, and he loves to visit his old neighborhood and to visit with old friends. He maintains many relationships with people from his community, including Judge Donovan W. Frank who Rodney met years ago as a consultant. You can also find Rodney volunteering at our Northland office weekly as he loves to help out and to be part of the team. Rodney is the rare soul who is always smiling and quick with a joke.
One of the things that makes Rodney special is that he will tell you with confidence that he “opens up minds” about men having different ways of life, especially men with disabilities. In the disability services community, the sole focus is often to provide services, with secondary emphasis on offering choices, supporting different ways of life, and overall, improving and maintaining a high quality of life. At other places Rodney felt that while he was supported as a person with a disability, he wasn’t really being truly heard. So, he took the initiative and spoke his truth.
Rodney’s story and advocacy is not unlike many others, but some might feel he is unique as he describes himself as outgoing, full of love—and gender fluid. The first two characteristics are said easily and without notice. The last, gender fluid, is a term he loves to use to gage reactions. He is a confident and layered individual who has gained so much ground over the last three years in advocating for himself. He used to whisper, “I love to wear women’s clothing,” behind his hand. Now, he will speak openly and freely about his preferences, and fight for what he wants every day. At the last three Galas he wore beautiful gowns and dressed to the nines, in clothing that made him happy. At Living Well, we believe self-expression is an important part of living one’s best life, and that supporting him is always as important as providing a safe and comfortable home.
Rodney has so many great stories and now his greatest wish is to write a book.
Alex Buslee has worked at Living Well since 1993 and is the Program Manager at Poppler. She says, “Rodney is sweet and soft looking, but behind the scenes he’s as fierce as they come. He is the eyes and ears of the house, keeping him one step ahead of everyone at all times. He is sharp and funny. And know that if you are greeted with ‘hi dummy’ then you know he really loves you.“
In 2022, Rodney was featured in a video produced by Walser Subaru of St. Paul as part of their Subaru Share the Love Partnership, you can watch it here. Rodney, and his smile and grace, shared about his love for Living Well and his incredible staff throughout the process. Over the past three years that partnership connected hundreds of new community members to Living Well and resulted in donations totaling $73,522. We were nominated again this year for the Share the Love event, so if you are in the market for a new car head over to Walser Subaru of St Paul in November.
Rodney, congrats on being this year’s Self-Advocate Dreammaker winner. We are delighted you are thriving in your newfound confidence.
(The Self-advocate award honors an individual served by Living Well Disability Services for their personal accomplishments. This could include advocating for themselves and others in the disability community. This award is special because our self-advocates are a key pillar of our organization. The work we do is for THEM. Everyone who donates, volunteers or partners with Living Well is doing it so the advocates can have a bigger brighter voice, a higher quality of life, and a community to call their own.)
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