Autism Rescue Angels Chosen for Okra Charity Saloon

So honored to have been one of the four charities chosen for a donation booth at Okra Charity Saloon this month!

Autism Rescue Angel’s voting happy hour was held on Monday, November 12 at 4:00pm! A big thank you to Dr. Vesna Arezina and everyone else who came out to support our cause and place a vote.

Voting results will be released at the end of November!

500,000 Teens with Autism to Join the Workforce

Proud of our friends at Aspire Accessories! Their program looks to give this population transferrable business skills by teaching light manufacturing, retail and customer service. Many people with autism are lower-mid functioning and true independent employment is not possible so thinking the statistics are even grimmer than reported.

Read the Houston Chronicle’s full article here.

Hurricane Harvey by the Numbers

Since August 26, 2017:

  • 729 emails answered
  • 574 phone calls returned
  • 468 Facebook messages
  • 23 families (we met in parking lots to hand off therapy supplies and funds when mail was unreliable those first few weeks after the storm hit)

In total, Autism Rescue Angels has granted funds, medical equipment, and therapy supplies to 126 autism families since Harvey hit 13 months ago.

What a journey! Thank you to ALL who have been part of these efforts. We could not have done any of this without your support!

Our prayers are now with all families trying to put their lives back together in Florida.

Houston Ballet Donates Tickets to Sensory Friendly Dance Performance

What a fantastic sensory-friendly performance put on today by the Houston Ballet! Tyler and I loved it. Thank you Houston Ballet for creating such a fabulous program and the WithMerci Foundation and Whitney Mercilus for donating tickets for our Autism Rescue Angels families to attend!

Texas, We Can Do Better For Special Needs

In Texas, there are few residential options for adults with special needs that are high quality and affordable and most are private. The cost of these centers runs $47,000-70,000 per year. If your adult child with special needs goes to a place like this from ages 30-65, the cost is $1-2M. If you couple that with a high divorce rate in the Special Needs community, there is a majority of single parents out there who cannot afford this long-term care. Even married couples struggle with this cost. Imagine if you had to pay for college for 35-40 years.

Texas, we can do better for Special Needs families.
We must.