Heather McCain didn’t found the Live Educate Transform Society (LET’S) because they were looking to build an organization.
They founded it because they were living inside a system that wasn’t listening.
“I had already been having troubles finding resources and having a disability,” Heather said. “It was very isolating. I had graduated high school and then my body kind of fell apart. And for six years, I essentially only left the house for medical appointments, trying to get a diagnosis.”
During that time, Heather created a chronic pain support group to connect with others who are going through similar experiences.
They also began to see how little representation disabled people had, especially people whose disabilities did not fit the narrow stories the public was used to hearing.
And then came the issue that pushed everything forward.
Heather was using a power wheelchair at the time and facing repeated barriers on public transit.
“Transit drivers would lie and say that the ramps weren’t operating so that they didn’t have to lower the ramp,” they said. Heather wrote “letter after letter to TransLink with no response.”
Then someone in the support group joked that Heather should start their own organization. So, they did.
After that, Heather sent the exact same letter again, only this time with “Executive Director” under their name.
“I got a response a week later,” Heather said.
That story says a great deal about why LET’S was needed in the first place.
It was never just about one transit complaint. It was about what happens when disabled people are expected to fight to be heard, explain their own humanity, and prove their own needs before anyone takes them seriously.
So, what started as a grassroots effort in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows has since grown into LET’S, an organization run and staffed by disabled and neurodivergent people, many of whom are also 2SLGBTQIA+, who use their lived experience to create change through workshops, consulting, advocacy, and education.
Heather will also be speaking at BC CRN’s Provincial Learning Event on Disability Awareness on May 19.
Their message is deeply relevant to Community Response Networks across B.C., as it speaks to what safer communities actually require, and why equity and accessibility are not just side issues when it comes to abuse prevention.
Built by Community, Shaped by Lived Experience
Heather described LET’S as community-driven from the beginning.
“So, really, it started with me and some people from the chronic pain support group,” they said.
As the work began to have an impact, more people in the disability community found out about the organization. And as a result, its reach grew, online access expanded its audience, and new relationships have shaped its direction.
Heather also spoke about how intersectionality became a much more intentional part of LET’S’ work over time.
“People like me, who are queer, trans, disabled, neurodivergent, sometimes we have to figure out who we’re representing in what spaces,” they said. “And it’d be nice to just show up as ourselves, and the full complexity of who we are.”
That idea of full complexity is incredibly important, not least because it pushes back against the tidy, simplified depictions of disability that people are still exposed to.
What’s more, it also helps explain why LET’S has remained committed to work that comes from the community itself.
“There are a lot of things about our community, but not by our community,” Heather said. “And that’s been a through line for the organization.”
For Heather, lived experience is not a marketing phrase or a symbolic gesture. It’s the difference between getting something right and getting it wrong.
“For a long time, accessibility was created for us by people outside of our community,” they said. “And when that accessibility didn’t actually meet our needs, they would be quite frustrated with us and make us feel like we were the problem, instead of them actually listening to us.”
This doesn’t just create bad policy. It creates harm, as it leaves people unheard, misrepresented, and excluded from conversations that are supposed to address their needs.
Heather put it even more plainly by saying, “I don’t want people to imagine what it’s like to be disabled. I want them to listen to disabled people explain what it’s like to be disabled.”
Moving Beyond Narrow Ideas of Disability
Heather pointed out that one of the biggest misunderstandings people still have is how narrow their idea of disability is.
BC CRN will be welcoming Heather to speak at the Provincial Learning Event on May 19. Learn more and register.
