Sunflowers in Winter
The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower has been launched at the Buffalo and Niagara Falls airports!
It’s been a long time coming.
For the past year or so, I’ve been doing my best to raise awareness of the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower in Western New York. This program, which started in 2016 in the United Kingdom and is supposed to be a discrete symbol that one can wear to indicate they have a hidden disability and may need additional support, was unknown here. The closest airports to me that were part of the program prior to me becoming aware of it were the Toronto Pearson airport and the Syracuse airport.
My awareness campaign began in earnest on January 7, 2024, when I purchased my sunflower lanyard1. Once I received it, I began to wear it anytime I went out. Although the general public didn’t notice me wearing the lanyard, my friends did, and when I told them about the program, they liked it.
Not long after, I reached out to my workplace, the Niagara County Department of Health, to adopt the Sunflower program and to inform the various members of the Core Advisory Group (CAG) about it. One of the members on the CAG is the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA). During one of the CAG meetings, I talked about the Hidden Disability Sunflower program. Holly Nidell, who represents the NFTA during these meetings, was quite interested after I presented the program. This interest grew after the Health Department ran a successful pilot program in the summer, and after the pilot concluded, the NFTA went to work in getting the Buffalo and Niagara Falls airports onboarded.
After a period of training their staff and setting up the appropriate logistics so that people can acquire a sunflower lanyard, the Buffalo and Niagara Falls airports officially joined the program on January 10, 2025, just over a year from when I purchased my lanyard. This was announced via a short press conference held at the airport, which I attended in person. During the conference, the NFTA mentioned that their bus and rail system would get onboarded soon.
Seeing this launch at the airport made me quite happy, as it means that my efforts are not in vain. I hope that many people, including me, are able to use and benefit from this program.
My work is not over, though. There are still plenty of places that I could see the Sunflower being beneficial here in Western New York. Some places that come to mind include:
The Walden Galleria
The Bills stadium
KeyBank Arena
The various museums in Buffalo (such as the AKG, the Buffalo Science Museum, the Buffalo History Museum, etc.)
My main goal right now with this program is to make the Sunflower an official state symbol in New York for people with disabilities. With the momentum that the program has throughout the state (having presence at most of the state’s major airports and at Pace University), I feel this can easily be done.
Although shorter than my usual posts, I hoped you enjoyed this Sunflower update! If you did, like and share! It really helps.
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Technically, I heard about it sooner than this. Looking at my saved posts on Instagram, I did save the Hidden Sunflower US page's post on Pace University joining the program on 11/14/2023, as well as leaving a comment on a post on the same account dated 4/21/2023. So, I had to have heard about the program before this point. I do recall seeing it mentioned on Instagram before this point - but I sadly didn’t mark the post that sparked my interest in the program. Nor did I mention the origin point on my first post involving the sunflower.
You should be very proud of yourself! I too believe strongly in the program and that this it should go national. I hope the sunflower can be as well known as the pink ribbon or the puzzle piece. I think maybe hidden disabilities are more prevalent in the unseen category.
Great job!