The Disability Foundation exists to help people with significant disabilities achieve full citizenship in the community.

Created through the initiative of quadriplegic Sam Sullivan, the Disability Foundation's six affiliated societies are: BC Mobility Opportunities Society, ConnecTra Society, Disabled Independent Gardeners Association, Disabled Sailing Association, Tetra Society of North America and Vancouver Adapted Music Society.

After a skiing accident left him a quadriplegic in 1979, Sam Sullivan decided to reach out to other disabled people to help them take more responsibility for their lives. While doing this, he also raised awareness with legislators, politicians and other key community officials of the vast potential that people with disabilities offer to the community at large.

Sam believed barriers preventing or limiting full participation in society by people with disabilities could be surmounted through action and effort on the part of those people themselves together with their able-bodied counterparts.

Sam focused particularly on the challenges faced by people moving from institutions into more independent living. Many people in these circumstances become isolated and unable to access the services they need to help them integrate successfully.

Sam's willpower and entrepreneurship brought into reality several of the objectives he originally set out to achieve. With determination, energy, ingenuity and sheer effort, he launched six non-profit societies, all representing the ideal of promoting full citizenship in the community. The activities and programs these societies offer help improve the lives of people with disabilities not only in the Lower Mainland and BC, but across North America and around the world.

At an awareness dinner several years ago for the Disability Foundation, former Prime Minister Kim Campbell spoke of being inspired by a line in the Bible which said:

I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither bread to the wise, nor wealth to men of discerning, nor favour to men of skill; but time and chance overtaketh them all. (Ecc. 9:11)

She told Sam that if he wanted a really good name for the foundation, he should look to Ecclesiastes for inspiration. Later, when Sam went to look for his Bible, he discovered that his homemaker had put it on his top bookshelf. He tried several times to reach it, but because his arms had no triceps, his hand kept falling back on his head. He tried other angles but without success. Then he remembered a line from Robert Browning:

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

He thought about how often he seemed to be reaching for impossible things, and how this imagery was a metaphor for the lives of so many disabled people. So he proposed that the foundation be named the Reach Disability Foundation, a name that the organization held until 2001, when it was officially changed to the Sam Sullivan Disability Foundation or, as Sam prefers, simply the Disability Foundation.

The Disability Foundation serves those with significant disabilities, not just those who are easiest to serve. It makes sure its services are available to people with very limited disposable incomes.