‘Changing the world’

When Ailsa Wonnacott, executive director of the Association for Community Living, recently made her annual appeal for funding to the Boulder County Commissioners, she brought along a powerful message.

In her office in rural Longmont, Wonnacott keeps the cardboard sign she brought to that meeting. On one side, her team created colorful images of all the work ACL does to advocate on behalf of children and adults who live with developmental disabilities, ranging from training young parents to fostering changes in public policy.

On the other side was a coarse image of a tiny, rundown building behind a chain-link fence. Earlier this…