The Handicapped Development Center (HDC) in Davenport is participating in the Spread the Word to End the Word Campaign. The goal is to get people to stop using the word 'retarded.'
The campaign is happening on Wednesday, March 4, 2015 across the country. The HDC held a rally at their local center Wednesday morning. About 100 people came to listen to speakers, and sign a piece of paper, saying they'd never use 'the R word' again.
The word 'retarded' is commonly used now to refer to somebody as 'stupid.' Instead employees at the HDC would rather have somebody use the 'R word' like respect to describe something.
From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, the HDC took pledges from people at the Hy-Vee at Kimberly and Eastern in Davenport. The pledge will ask people to never say 'the R word' again.
As of Wednesday afternoon, there were nearly 532,000 online pledges.