Joanie Groome Awarded Hometown Hero by Tompkins Weekly

On many days at the YMCA of Ithaca and Tompkins County, the lobby turns into a kind of impromptu celebration. As each child arrives for an adaptive program, staff members and interns cheer, clap and call their names. For adaptive and inclusion coordinator Joanie Groome, it’s not a gimmick. It’s forming a vital connection.

“They’re rock stars when they come in,” Groome said. “They’re not a disability. They’re kids.”

Groome, our latest Hometown Hero, has spent decades building inclusive recreation for people with disabilities in Tompkins County, from the Youth Bureau to the YMCA pool. Families say her programs are often the only spaces where their children are not treated as an “inconvenience.” She is training a new generation of teachers and coaches so, as she puts it, the work will “stick” long after she retires.

From hidden lives to center stage

Groome grew up in New Jersey in the 1960s and 1970s, when children with disabilities were largely absent from public life.

“When I was growing up, people with disabilities were not seen in community or in public spaces,” she said. “That was the era of institutionalization. If there was school, it was separate, and kids were kind of hidden.”

Looking back, she feels cheated.

“I feel like I lost out the first 20 years of my life,” she said. “I knew that there were people with disabilities, but who are they? Where are they? I didn’t know.”

That sense of loss and anger became fuel. For more than 30 years as recreation coordinator for people with disabilities at the Ithaca Youth Bureau and as a longtime Ithaca College instructor, Groome has tried to make sure that the next generation understands the history and the stakes.

In her Disability Awareness course at Ithaca College, which she has taught for 31 years, she walks students through the United States’ treatment of disabled people, from institutions like Willowbrook on Staten Island to the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

“The students are absolutely horrified,” she said. “It explains why some things are the way they are today — and how easily we could slip back into some of what happened in our country.”

Building a safety net in the water

Groome first worked at the YMCA as fitness director in 1985. Even after moving into her Youth Bureau role in 1991, she kept bringing kids to the Y and stayed connected to its aquatics staff.

What she saw there stuck with her.

“I loved the YMCA,” she said. “What I noticed about the Y was, it’s a really inclusive place in terms of race, ethnic background, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, age. What I noticed was there were not programs for kids with disabilities, and staff were not prepared to include kids with disabilities. And I’m like, I want to do something about this.”

About a decade ago, Groome helped secure a small grant to start a pilot adaptive swim program.

The program began with one support class for five children. It has since grown into four levels of adaptive aquatics, grouped by age from preschool through teens, plus specialized one-on-one lessons for children with higher support needs.

“The work is physically demanding,” she said. “It is extremely psychologically demanding, regardless if they have a disability or not, to figure out what is a trigger for this kid, what motivates this kid. Every kid is so different.”

Groome cites research showing that children with autism spectrum disorder, level three, are “160 times greater to have a drowning injury or drowning than neurotypical kids.”

This is due to Impulse control differences, a powerful attraction to the feel of water, and a limited understanding of danger, she explained.

“Our number one thing with the swim program is safety,” Groome said. “We make sure we say hello to the lifeguard, and we ask permission before we go in the water, every single swim lesson.”

As the Y prepares to rebuild and expand its aquatic facilities with a $6.3 million state grant, including an accessible second pool and hydrotherapy spa, Groome’s programs are positioned to reach more families who have few other options.

‘We are othered in so many ways’

For parents like Walaa Maharem-Horan, Groome’s work is not an add-on. It is a lifeline.

“We are othered in so many ways,” she said.

At times, advocating for her child — who uses a wheelchair, walker and communication device — has been met with open resistance. She recalled fighting for basic accommodations and being asked, “Does every place need to be accessible to her?”

At the Y, she said, the experience is the opposite.

“Joanie has created a space where our kids are … a part of their own community, but they’re also a part of the everyday community,” Maharem-Horan said. “They are supported. … They are with their peers.”

Representation matters, she added, not only for her daughter but for every child who sees someone like her in action.

“Joanie makes sure that they are represented in this space, at the very least — which is rare,” she said. Her child, who has met other children who use hearing aids, wheelchairs or walkers, gets excited to go to the Y. “We would never have met these children if Joanie hadn’t created this space for us to exist.”

Training the next generation

Groome’s post-retirement job at the Y, where she often works 35 to 40 hours a week, is in many ways a second full-time career. She knows she cannot stay at the pool forever, so she is determined to make sure the work lasts.

“Inclusion is a process, not a place,” she said. “It doesn’t happen unless someone’s intentional about it.”

Groome pulls in Ithaca College students from her courses, hires promising high schoolers and young adults, and spends hours in the water coaching them through real-world situations.

“One of my passions, besides creating programs here for kids with and without disabilities, is having staff who are learning this,” she said.

Former student Sam Fishman first met Groome as a freshman at Ithaca College in 2003.

“That class changed my trajectory as a human and as a professional,” Fishman said of Groome’s disability course. Fishman went on to become Groome’s teaching assistant, then her mentee and friend — and now works alongside her as an adaptive swim instructor.

“She is the ultimate advocate, the ultimate hype woman,” Fishman said.

Another member of Groome’s adaptive aquatics team, Amy Seldin, spent 27 years teaching physical education at Caroline Elementary School and holds a master’s degree in adaptive physical education. She said even with that background, she has been struck by what Groome is building.

“It is very clear to me how skillful she is in providing the right environment for children and families to grow in,” Seldin said. “She does a lot of work that nobody sees.”

Groome’s programs now include two weekly playgroups that double as respite for parents, a teen fitness group and periodic family swim events. She is working toward a fully equipped sensory room upstairs at the Y that could serve children across programs within the next year, if she can secure grant funding.

Ultimately, she said, she would love to see every youth program at the Y ready to welcome children with disabilities, rather than relying on separate offerings — a goal she acknowledges will require “tons and tons” of staff training and resources.

“One in 12 kids has a developmental disability,” Groome said. “Fifteen percent of kids in Tompkins County receive special education services. We don’t even touch the tip of the iceberg.”

Her former colleague and longtime friend Frank Towner, who led the Ithaca Y as CEO for years, puts it more simply.

“There was never a time when there was a ‘no,’” he said of Groome’s efforts to start the adaptive swim program. “We would just try to clear the way so she can do her program.”

Tompkins Weekly’s Hometown Heroes Award is sponsored by Security Mutual Insurance and Canopy by Hilton Ithaca.