I also have a dream . . . and a question

Part of my journey as a father of children with special needs led me to become involved with a local Down syndrome non-profit. I served 9 years and exited as past president of the board. One of the trends discovered during my service was that families strayed or distanced from the organization as their child or children with special needs became older.

These families, mine now included, find themselves involved in age appropriate activities with their children, from special Olympics and various sports to equestrian to music and theatre; one common theme was as clear 16 years ago as it is today, parents scramble to find activities that hold their child’s/young adults interest and as a community we become separated as quickly as we came together.

Now, my wife and I search for ‘programs and services’ for our sons as they near the end of their school age life; things like ‘work’ and ‘day programs’ loom over us almost like a dark cloud in that we do not know what the future holds, only that we face ‘wait lists’ in order to receive ‘services’; and we are not alone.

Globally, societies are all facing ‘living within their means’ and ‘spending cuts’ and in the US, non-profits continue to struggle as funding sources fade. The saturation of non-profits does not help and is a subject for another time; but the fact remains, non-profits struggle and fight to remain alive even at the cost of alienating the very consumer they pledge to serve.

One more note; Entitlement programs in the US are completely useless as they penalize those intended to benefit and are scammed and abused by those that have no ambition to make a difference on this earth, but only look for excuses; again, a topic for another time.

In a day and time when mothers and fathers struggle to make ends meet and work more at their jobs than they do at their marriages and families; does it strike you as odd as it does me that most people will spend more time on planning a vacation than planning for the future of their family? People spend more money on their cars than they do on their homes; and the list goes on; but in this over spend, and highly over informed world, my dream is to live a happy life, a simple life and I dream to see that my wife and sons live the same. What matters most to me are the people that God has entrusted Me With.

What inspires you?

This entry was posted on 21. February 2011 at 05:22 and is filed under Kyle & Hunter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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