People who treat disabled people as charity cases believe that Disability is tragic and sad and think of non-disabled people as the saviors of Disabled people. Non-disabled people must help Disabled people as part of their civic and moral duties.

The charity approach is about non-disabled people attempting to do good for disabled folks. Unfortunately, it does not result in positive change but instead marginalizes Disabled people. Primarily non-disabled people lead these charities to help Disabled people live “better lives” or find cures to their diseases. Unfortunately, they don’t include Disabled people in developing programs, and resources are often misused. In addition, they often use messaging that shows Disabled people as helpless to generate funds from non-disabled people who feel bad for them.

Between 1966 and 2010, Jerry Lewis’s Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon paraded children across television screens throughout the country to raise money to “cure” the disability. The program pitied children with Muscular Dystrophy, and featured interviews with parents who lamented the fact that their child couldn’t walk and live a “normal” life. The children, on the other hand, found the telethon demeaning and exploitative, partly because the program portrayed people with disabilities as burdens on society and because they did not want to be cured. Multiple self-advocacy organizations, including Jerry’s Orphans, spearheaded by Mike Ervin and Chris Matthews, fought to cancel the program (Beyond Ramps, Chapter 7).