The third graders at Pershing Elementary participated in a special lesson last month: a hands-on workshop about disabilities and the tools people may use, such as wheelchairs, braces, and canes.

A Touch of Understanding, a nonprofit organization based in Granite Bay, brings these workshops to thousands of students each year to teach empathy, inclusion, and respect to young people across the region.

"By providing education about what disabilities are and the tools that somebody may use, children are able to better understand their peers and themselves,” Executive Director Meghan Adamski said.

Volunteers, some with personal experience with disabilities themselves, guide the students through a series of stations focused on different physical disabilities, as well as invisible ones and lear

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