Would you believe it if your grandparents promised to walk across America to bring awareness to autism?
For Jackson, Elijah, Quinn, Grace, Nola, Addie and even baby Max, thinking Mema and Pappy were going to walk all that way — 2437.7 miles to be exact — seemed crazy. But it’s true!
Dan and Mary Beth Reardon, fondly known as Mema and Pappy, are taking off on a great adventure to meet families, therapists, doctors, teachers, mentors, and, most importantly, the individuals who experience autism in all its forms everyday.
Their goal is to document their journey — backed by the idea that “you don’t know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes” — and share it with the rest of the “typical” population that needs to understand the growing and changing needs of the autism community so that they can be positive changemakers not just for people with autism, but with people with autism.
Their secondary goal is to promote inclusion programs, such as Athletes 4 Autism, by raising $50,000 along the way. These funds will be used to open up more free, seasonal sports clinics across the United States. How awesome!
You have to check this out for yourself. See the video and share their fundraising page here: www.gofundme.org/thewalk
After a Daddy-Daughter bonding nail party, Scarlett proudly displayed her glowing toes for us all to see. Hours later, completely out of the blue, Lilly spoke the most beautiful sentence we have ever heard.
Cue nail polish party: part two. The happy hands, dimple bearing grin and ear covering humming ensued, and we cheered with delight right along. When nighttime came, I pressed her weighted blanket over her in bed, she leaned over and presented her hands, dainty as can be.
Two years ago, my wonderful and caring husband made me a “Happy A Mommy’s Day” card. For about a year, Lilly called me “a mommy.” To her, I was 
When you’re doing your 
We went to that assignment interview expecting to get a few others to look at our grassroots effort, but your interview went beyond that. You gave A4A a tool to share its vision with that assignment and 
Listening can be done two ways. The way we understand it: you can either listen to hear, or you can listen to reply. Outstanding journalists — and people — listen to hear. You had no intention of replying with an opinion; you came to walk in our shoes — to understand as best as you could — by first listening to what we had to say and then translating it into an approachable medium for the public so that they could hear, too.
