Stephanie Sudin arrives like a spark: quick, curious, and already halfway to the next adventure. When you first meet her, you come to notice her curiosity. Bright, restless, almost humming beneath the surface like a thread pulled taut with possibility. She names the places she loves to go (“everywhere,” she says, with a smile and a small shrug that somehow widens the universe), rattles off her favorite hikes and sports, and speaks with a warm heart that slows the pace of the entire room. Born and raised in St. Louis, she has spent her life gathering experiences the way some people collect postcards: colorful, varied, carried gently in memory.
Yet it’s not wanderlust alone that defines her. It’s the way she approaches learning with determination, delight, and a willingness to try again that almost feels like a superpower.
Learning at a Different Rhythm
She explains her learning disorder plainly, without any fuss or flourish:
"Somebody has to show me how to do things, and then after that, I’m good to go.”
The line carries its own sort of music, a balance of vulnerability and self-assurance. She knows she needs clarity, demonstration, and patience. For much of her early life, those elements came inconsistently. In school she felt the dissonance deeply: some teachers she liked, one she didn’t, a principal she avoided, lessons that arrived in ways she couldn’t decipher. She did her best to keep up, but often feeling like she understood the world only when someone handed her the missing piece.
Long before Easterseals, she worked with another agency that was “like Easterseals, but different.” It was a good organization, just not the right fit. She needed something about just the services. She needed room to learn, room to travel. Room to grow.
A Wider, Warmer World
When Stephanie joined Easterseals Midwest, the change wasn’t dramatic at the outset; it was gentle and steady, like sunrise softening the morning dawn. She was welcomed into Independent Living services and paired with staff who not only supported her, but explored with her.
“I hang out with my staff person,” she says, smiling as though remembering a favorite memory, “and we do a lot of different things. Go to the store. Go to places I’ve never been before.”
They often chart new territory together: a grocery aisle she hasn’t visited, a park she’s only just heard about, a part of town she’s never seen. Every outing builds up confidence, often the kind that settles softly in the bones. Easterseals becomes not just a service provider, but a companion in discovery, offering tools, patience, and encouragement as she decides what her independence should look like.
Growing into Her Own
Little by little, she has begun to move differently through the world, as though led by a quiet internal compass newly tuned to possibility. She speaks freely about her faith, her family scattered across the map (“everywhere,” she repeats, always with a wide-open energy), and her desire to someday visit loved ones in Israel when the timing feels right.
And when speaking about activism, her voice shifts like a spark igniting. She loves learning about different disabilities, not out of obligation but out of curiosity and kinship. She attends advocacy events, listens closely, asks questions, and shares what she knows. Her lived experience becomes not a limitation, but a lantern… something she carries into new conversations to help others feel seen.
Easterseals is there for the support. Stephanie provides the momentum.
Independence with Open Horizons
Today, Stephanie’s life feels fuller, widened by new routines and a newfound confidence. She spends her days learning, exploring, and connecting with friends, family, and her community. She attends church for holidays and moments of remembrance, keeps in touch with high-school friends online, and imagines reunions she wishes to attend.
But most of all, she continues to expand the boundaries of her independence, one outing at a time. What started as simple errands have now grown into something more textured: a sense that the city, and life itself, holds some space for her.
An Invitation
When asked what she would say to someone considering Easterseals, Stephanie is very clear. Her face lights up, she sits up straighter, and replies with her trademark blend of heart and certainty:
“I’d say, ‘Welcome to Easterseals!’ I’m telling you my story… we might as well spread the word and learn your story, too.”
It’s an open-armed, generous, and hopeful invitation. Stephanie knows that everyone carries a story worth telling. Here is one of growth, courage, and an ever-widening world.
And she’s not done yet.
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The Impact Continues
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