SAN ANTONIO – She’s an actress, clothing designer, animal advocate and the inspiration for a new book that was just released on March 18.
And San Antonio native Sammi Haney is only 12 years old.
She gets around by wheelchair, but she never sees that as a disability.
“I recently got nominated for the Emmys,” Sammi said. “And so I went to the Emmys. It was pretty funny.”
The young actress was recently a series regular on the Netflix streaming show, “Raising Dion”.
Acting for the 12-year-old is just one of the many things she’s in command of. She also has a clothing line.
“The store is disability t-shirts.com and my dad designs t-shirts, but I approve them. We have a bunch of shirts with like sayings to advocate for people with disabilities,” Sammi said.
Sammi is always up for a challenge. That grit comes from a diagnosis at birth called Brittle Bone Disease. Simple tasks have caused her to break hundreds of bones, so she uses a wheelchair. And now she’s using her real life story as inspiration for a superhero.
Trinity Jagdeo is the author of ‘Savvy Sammi: The Superhero’ book. A few interactions with Sammi sparked an idea for Trinity.
“We loved the way that they communicated with us,” Trinity said.. “We were like, we might as well turn you into a superhero... We really built the entire character around Sammi’s personality.”
Writing books is nothing new to Trinity. In fact ‘Savvy Sammi’ is the fifth book from Trinity’s nonprofit called, “From we can’t to we can.”
“I started creating children with disabilities as superheroes, because I have a best friend that has disabilities,” Trinity said. “Once I noticed the lack of representation, I wanted to do more for the disability community.”
Sammi’s hopes her book will inspire and educate others.
“It’s really awesome that I’m able to do this,” Sammi said. “And so I just really want to spread disability awareness and help people to realize that people with disabilities aren’t really that different from a person without a disability.”