Pay It Forward!!

Do you remember the movie "Pay It Forward". This was one of my favorite movies and it is one of those movie that just stick with you no matter how many years go by. It's the concept...the life lesson...that you can make a difference in this world and by your actions encourage others to make a difference.

This thought process has stayed with me for quite some time and has been an influence on my life. I began the process when I volunteered for the Make a Wish Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House before Sam was born. I then decided to take on the cause of bringing a Wisconsin Chapter of the NACD to our families with special needs children in Wisconsin. I hoped that when Mardy and I gathered people together to build Possibility Playground, a $450,000.00 playground for every child of every ability that they felt the effect of paying it forward and that it inspired them to go on and volunteer on other such projects or other communities would be inspired to do the same. I hoped that writing my blog and sharing my journey with Sam and my children would help other parents who are on a similar journey and I would be paying it forward. A fellow blogger from one of the most popular blogs in the blogsphere is currently doing her version of Pay It Forward, please check out www.kellehampton.com. Kelle started out wanting to raise $15,000.00 for the National Down Syndrome Society and has now raised her goal to $75,000.00. She is an amazing photographer and her blog is full of inspiration! Please check it out!

So...what's next in the plans for Sue Mayer to Pay It Forward?? Well, I'm glad you asked, I have two ideas. The first is one that has tugged at my heart for quite some time. In many foreign countries children with special needs and Down syndrome are considered disposable. These children are viewed as outcasts with no ability to learn or be functional members of society. They languish in orphanages and then mental institutions, hidden away from the world in shame. An organization working to change the fate of these children is www.reecesrainbow.org. This organization helps locate children with special needs that need to find a forever family before they are transferred to a mental institution. Now before Jeff reads this and starts getting worried again...no, I'm not planning on adopting another child with special needs....yet (always like to keep him on his toes). But we all could join together to help a family bring one of these special needs children home to their forever family. I often check up on the children listed and I love following the stories of their adoptive families. Recently as I was viewing the site I came across a little boy that tugged at my heart...

I would like you to meet Sam, that's right this little orphan from Russia shares his name and diagnosis with our Sam.

I have never met his family but something about this little boy and his soon to be forever family spoke to me. I have been following their progress on their blog www.addingtotheateam.blogspot.com. The Mount's are a family of 8 that has decided they have some extra room in their family for Sam. Let's help them bring Sam home. International adoption is expensive and Sam's family is currently in the home study phase which they hope to have concluded by the end of this month. If I have tugged at your heart enough, you can make a donation to Sam's adoption fund through Reece's Rainbow at http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsormounts.

Let's give this little Sam the same opportunities our Sam has. A family that loves him and will take care of him and help him be the best that he can be.

Okay, I'm going to tug at your heart a little more. On January 6th the Mount's family learned that Sam was transferred from the orphanage to the mental institution. PLEASE...it has become urgent to help save Sam and bring him home to his forever family ASAP.

Now I did say I had two ideas....didn't I???? Well the second one has to do with awareness and education. This is an idea in the making that everyone can comment on and make suggestions. I wanted to come up with a Pay It Forward idea that would raise awareness, educate and impact the teenage to young adult age group. Why that age group??? Because unless they have a family member with special needs many of them have not come into contact with people with special needs and due to their lack of knowledge they may have many misconceptions about people with special needs, they may treat them poorly or worse simply ignore them or make fun of them. If we ever want to have a positive impact on reducing the number of Down syndrome abortions, a staggering 90%, we need to educate young people about how wonderful children and adults with Down syndrome really are. The positive ways they impact our lives and the valuable life lessons they are teaching us.

My first thought is that many of the younger people are working in restaurants as a first job. They work for tips....hmmm....what would happen if they received a lottery ticket and a business card directing them to a website. But what would be on that website that would make an impact on them??? What would be your suggestions on how they could Pay It Forward? Let's brainstorm and see what we come up with!! I'm guessing some people would not like the idea of the lottery ticket because we could be promoting gambling. What do you think, what ideas can you come up with? Leave me a comment and lets start the conversation.

Step 7 & 8 of the Path Process

Step 7-Planning the Next Month's Work. An overwhelming theme came through Sam's Path Process...think about small steps that move Sam toward his goals and dreams. It's funny because that seems to be an underlying theme with Sam in general , he is not known to make huge jumps in his progress or development...slow and steady has been our motto.

In this step we looked at what we will have to do, who and how. We will check into church groups, come up with small chores around the home and shop, check on volunteer opportunities at St. Johns, Sam's church and hopefully locate some social outlets within the community. We were getting tired and I felt the need to really sit down and review his dreams and goals to determine what these small steps would and should look like. This step will require further thought and a lot more definition but it was a start.


Step 8-Committing to the First Step. This step requires you to commit to doing something and exactly what that something will be. As a known procrastinator it does not surprise me that this step is not well defined. For those who know me, I can get a lot done but I tend to fly by the seat of my pants and deadlines are necessary to elicit action. So what I should have committed to is a timeline for each step defined. We talked about getting a YMCA pass for the family with family support funding, having Sam go on a sledding trip arranged by his sister and cousin, Ben taking him snowmobiling to introduce a new sport to him, working with the school to arrange short visits and putting together his medical and diet list. Over the next week this step will be revamped and dates, people and actions will be well defined.

Sooooo, what have I learned from the process??? We have a lot of work ahead of us and as we have done all along we will take small steps toward reaching the goals. I recently explained Path to a friend this way. I guess what drew me to PATH was the idea of building community around an individual with special needs. I had done community building in order to build Possibility Playground, an extension of that just made sense to me. Unlike my other children I don’t really anticipate that things are just going to happen with Sam. My experience with Sam has been that he can do things other kids do but he has to be taught, shown or presented with the situation. He doesn’t easily pick up on things on his own. I think partially because of his hearing issue, his speech issue and the Boldt/Mayer characteristics of working only on those things that really interest you. I think Sam would be a kid that would easily get lost within the school system because he can play his Down syndrome/brain injury card very well and if you are going to think or accept that he can’t do something he’s more than happy to live up to that. But with a little push, a change in how things are presented, Sam has continued to amaze me with what he can do and what he does understand. For me the biggest challenge is not if Sam can learn it but how I need to teach it to him. The Path process allows me to bring other people into the process, sometimes it takes another person or another set of eyes to figure out how to best work with Sam, it is one of the reasons why I love having Sam in NACD. Along the way I’m sure we will find those people who do not work well with Sam and those that get it and see the ability that needs to be brought out. As we find those people, we add them to the circle of people who continue to interact with Sam. I guess having a second child with a learning disability I have had the opportunity to see Ben’s path and can now think about Sam’s with a little insight. Although the diagnosis is different the underlying theme is the same. I’ve spent years helping Ben understand Dyslexia and his learning disabilities with Reading, Writing and Spelling but always reassuring him that these are challenges but they do not define his potential and together we have developed a system that works for him. He is in the general curriculum, he knows what to ask his teachers for, how he needs to take tests and what adaptive technologies he uses to complete his assignments. Along the way we have had challenging times and we have added people who work well with Ben to his circle of support. As I always say, “this isn’t the program I signed up for” but all 3 of my children have taught me so much on the very different ways they learn and they are so worth the time and effort invested. I know with Sam, I need to recruit more people to form his circles of support and the Path process seems to be a great way to get this started. I have come to the realization that I don’t think there is enough of me to really work on all the different areas of Sam’s development. I think Sam will greatly benefit from working with other people, in different situations and learning how to make that work. With both of my boys it’s scary, putting them out there in the world and wondering how people will treat and work with them. We have had situations with a teacher, a peer that have severely affected self esteem and feelings of worth which are by far the hardest to work through but strength is often gained through adversity and Ben has learned to build a shell, a shell that deflects the negative and is reinforced with daily encouragement from the people within his circles. Hopefully, through Sam's path he will do the same.

The Building of a Dream

Last year on this date was the first day of our build for Possibility Playground http://www.possibilityplayground.org/. Last night I had trouble sleeping, it was as if I was replaying the excitement, stress, and worry of preparing myself for one of the most remarkable experiences of my life all over again.


Possibility Playground is about the size of a football field and it is a unique playground built for every child of every ability. In a year and a half our amazing steering committee raised over $450,000.00, recruited 2700 community volunteers, coordinated donations of food and beverages to help feed those volunteers, located and coordinated spectacular child care for the volunteer's children, got fabulous PR and coverage, gathered a trailer load of tools and hardware and watched as all of this came together to produce a one of a kind playground in just six days. There really is only one word to describe it...remarkable.


We went from this...

To this....

in just 6 days.

This playground was a labor of love, a pulling together of a small community, an amazing feat that touched everyone that participated. The stories from the build are as exciting as the ones we now hear from families that have been able to take their special needs children to a playground for the very first time.

This weekend we celebrate the playground's 1 year birthday. This was a once in a lifetime project for me, but it is one that I shared with 2700 people, a steering committee of dedicated, hard working, passionate people that went above and beyond, my family and friends, my church, my community...and I did all this for one little boy that on a daily basis shows me unconditional love, never gives up on me, pushes me to think outside the box and has taught me to never say never. I love you, Sammy!!! Let's go play!