Creating an inclusive community with the Joseph Maley Foundation

The WTSF is dedicated to ensuring all Washington Township students feel supported and welcomed at school. To further that mission, we’re proud to support the District’s work with the Joseph Maley Foundation, a local non-profit whose mission is to cultivate a more accepting, respectful and inclusive community through youth education and service programs.

The Joseph Maley Foundation was established in honor of Joseph Maley, who lived with a myriad disabilities before passing away from leukemia at the age of 18. His family—parents Vivian and John, and brothers Tony, Dominic, Frank and Gino—established the Foundation as a way to educate children and the greater community on living with disabilities, and to honor Joseph’s legacy of acceptance for all.

“What makes the Joseph Maley Foundation unique is that we were established in the name and legacy of a unique individual,” said Vivian Maley, Joseph’s mother and co-founder of Joseph Maley Foundation. “Joseph was my son, but he had a spirit that we have been able to capture with our mission to cultivate a more accepting, respectful and inclusive community.”

Washington Township elementary school student checks out a puppet from the Joseph Maley Foundation puppet show.

The hallmark of the Joseph Maley Foundation is its Disability Awareness Education Program, an innovative, standards-based educational program that teaches students about disabilities, and the power of acceptance, empathy and respect for all. 

Students participating in this program learn about disabilities in a variety of age-appropriate ways, from guest speakers to children’s literature to puppet shows. Students are also given the opportunity to participate in hands-on activities that simulate what it’s like to live with a particular disability.

A Joseph Maley Foundation presentation at Northview Middle School.

The result? Students have a better understanding of their classmates living with disabilities, creating a more inclusive and welcoming school for all.

“All students benefit from participating in this program,” said Mona Laghaie, School Psychologist for Washington Township Schools. “Students with disabilities feel seen, valued and empowered. Their peers learn to better understand and communicate with students who have disabilities, leading to new friendships and positive connections between students.”

Since 2019, the Washington Township Schools Foundation has provided grant support to bring the Joseph Maley Foundation’s Disability Awareness Program to District schools, beginning with the elementaries and expanding to the middle schools. 

“Middle school can be an especially challenging time to be different,” said Ms. Laghaie. “The Joseph Maley Foundation teaches that we are all different and it is okay to be different.”

To continue to make this program more accessible, the WTSF is providing matching funds to any school in the district that wants to work with the Joseph Maley Foundation in the 2024-2025 school year.

“The entire team at Joseph Maley Foundation is grateful to the staff at Washington Township Schools Foundation for their dedication and ongoing support of this vital Disability Awareness programming,” said Ms. Maley. “We have a wonderful history of working together, but this new plan to provide matching funds to any school wanting to implement programming is extraordinary, and clearly speaks the commitment WTSF has to its community.”

To learn more about the Joseph Maley Foundation, click here. Want to help support more programs like these? Click here to learn how you can give.

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