Spotlight: Susan Brown ’88

Going to the playground. Splashing around in the ocean. Walking down Main Street with an ice cream cone. For alumna Susan Brown (above right), the moments she calls “small miracles” became scarce when her daughter began having seizures at age 3. 

“Kristen’s seizures could not be controlled with medication,” explains Brown. Surgery corrected the problem, but left Kristen with developmental delays and mobility issues.

Knowing she wasn’t the only mom with a special-needs child, Brown wondered: How do you improve the lives of these children and their families?

The answer came in 2009, when she had a hand in creating the first fully accessible playground in MetroWest Massachusetts. Brown and a friend, Lotte Diomede, went on to establish Small Miracles in Life Exist (SMILE Mass), a nonprofit that helps families of children and adults with disabilities enjoy vacation and recreation (smilemass.org). 

Initiatives so far include an accessible beach rental house on Cape Cod, an equipment rental program, and an annual donation of 20 floating wheelchairs to public beaches in New England. On deck: more playgrounds, accessible vacation homes and a first-of-its-kind accessible gym.

“Every accommodation for a disabled person costs an extraordinary amount of money,” says Brown, who is the organization’s vice president. In many cases, adaptive equipment does not even exist. “Kristen loves being in the water and especially loves the beach,” Brown says. “A lot of us share that feeling, especially with our New England winters. I can’t imagine how sad she‘d be if that basic joy was not possible.”

Thanks to her mother — and SMILE Mass — Kristen has many more beach days on the horizon.

Photo credit: Susan Ogar Photography