For Simons, however, her education about the problems mentally handicapped people face started long ago.
When she attended Upper Dublin High School in the late 1970s, the school's mentally challenged children were kept in a separate section.
"As a high-schooler, if we were caught walking down that wing, we'd get teased, 'Oh, you must be one of them,' " Simons said. "I thought, 'How wrong this is. These kids need to be with us.'"
Simons, who now lives in West Lampeter Township, grew up with an aunt who has Down syndrome, so even before she got to high school she had a sensitivity to mentally disabled persons.
That feeling was reinforced 16 years ago, shortly after Simons and her husband, Dr. David Simons, an anesthesiologist at Community Hospital of Lancaster, had their first daughter, Samantha.
Born a healthy child, 'Sammie' inexplicably stopped breathing in her crib one day and fell into a coma. She woke up a month later with severe brain damage and developed cerebral palsy. The Simonses decided they would never isolate Samantha.
In fact, through their hard work and the activities and education she received as a toddler from the S. June Smith Foundation, Samantha entered kindergarten in Lampeter-Strasburg School District and became the first special-needs child in Lancaster County to attend mainstream classes.
She's now in 10th grade and manager of the school's girls' softball and junior varsity basketball teams.
When Samantha graduates, Simons wants her and others like her to be functioning members of mainstream society, just as she is at school.
"What we have found is that everybody, regardless of what level you function at, needs the same things in life," Simons said. "They need to have friends and have a social network; they need to feel as if they're contributing, so they need to be able to work and have some type of job."
That's why Simons founded Community of Courage in January. Much of the money the non-profit organization raises will be used to bolster programs that put disabled children in mainstream education and activities.
But the ultimate goal, Simons said, is to build a community in Lancaster County that has housing for disabled and nondisabled people. Some national corporations have already shown interest in the idea, she said.
It would be one step in solving a national problem, Simons said. Families don't have residential options for disabled children and adults.
Many disabled adults in their 40s and 50s have been cared for by their parents, who are now in their 80s and 90s, Simons said.
"Now the parents can't take care of themselves, and you have this disabled individual who needs to make a transition into a home and hasn't developed any skills to make that transition," Simons said.
Housing for the disabled also eases stress on families. According to Simons, more than 92 percent of couples who raise a disabled child get divorced within five years.
The Simonses' friends, such as Lani Todd of Lancaster, a model who was Playboy's Miss December 2002, have rallied around them. Todd raised $10,000 for Community of Courage last month signing photos and auctioning off prizes at Molly's Pub.
"After a person like Samantha graduates from school, there is really nothing for them to do," Todd said. "We are trying to raise awareness of that problem so we can build more programs that include them in the community in a meaningful way."
Aside from the goal of mainstream housing for mentally disabled people, Community of Courage will act as a database of programs.
Families and individuals seeking such programs can call Community of Courage at (800) 682-3138, or visit their Web site at www.communityofcourage.org.
The South Beach-inspired fundraiser is being held in conjunction with the S. June Smith Foundation. It will feature a gourmet dinner, cigar bar, gaming tables, silent and live auctions, a hole-in-one contest for a Porsche Boxter and entertainment by Philadelphia band Collage and DJ Freez. Simons said she's sold nearly all of the 300 available tickets.