VSA Arts Of Florida - Friends Campaign

VSA Florida - PBC

Therapeutic Recreation

Friends Campaign

Promoting the creative power in people with disabilities

Dear Friends of VSA,

I’d like to tell you the story of my sister Margie-Lee Rodriguez.

After a fall at age 2, Margie-Lee did not speak until the age of 10 and was diagnosed as “severely retarded”. Her slurred speech was attributed to “Cerebral Palsy” and she had to wear a “body brace” for three years due to the severe scoliosis of her spine. She graduated from 9th grade at the age of 22, but our father did not let her continue on to High School for fear she would be mistreated and/or harmed physically because of her disability.

You are probably asking yourself, “What did she do from age 22 to 42? Well, she spent her time in her room reading dictionaries and encyclopedias and drawing...drawing…drawing.

After our father died in 1997 and it was just her and her 70+ year old mother. Margie-Lees' life was even more secluded and isolated. She painted the walls of every room in the house and kept on reading whatever she got her hands on. Her mother died on January 1, 2009 at the age of 82 and I went to Puerto Rico to get her.

In March of 2009 my sister Margie-Lee and I discovered VSA Florida – Palm Beach County and her life is not the same! Her world has opened up to all the beauty and awe around her through the classes she has taken. From abstract and digital computer art, Sumi-e Ink Japanese art, Ceramics/Pottery, Jewelry, Photography, Norton Museum Special Exhibits, Glass Fusing and Community Theatre, Margie-Lee has blossomed into a very talented and high functioning adult.

VSA has become a necessary part of her life and thru your donations to VSA Florida – Palm Beach County it will continue to open up and expand the lives of many who have, for so long, lived in seclusion.