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This past weekend bitter mixed with sweet as we celebrated my husband's sister Lois' "Giving Tree" life of 88 years, and as we realized the deep, empty hole now in our close family.~~~Jeff has always been welcomed in this huge family. The pebble of his 27 years on this earth, tossed into this family, has caused ripples in people's lives resulting in careers in special education for at least three or four members, and in several volunteer's hours. Caitlyn is in her Junior year in college, ready to do her Student Teaching in classes of students with special needs. Her nine year-old sister has Down syndrome and has been integrated into a third grade class. We're so pleased...amazed at her progress!~~~Our nephew, Mark has been working with people with developmental disabilities for many years. There are more and more discoveries of things the members of our family are doing with people with special needs. The folks in the photo above are only about half of the family who gathered for Lois' funeral. More are scattered around the country, with a number of them involved as caregivers of people with special needs. We're so proud of them!!
Dear Sybil,
ReplyDeleteI feel honored to be part of your recent posting. This is such a great site and I am only at the tip of beginning to know it. I am still waiting to read the book as I am quite overwhelmed with the leftover 4 weeks of my semester.
I wanted to share with you that some of faculty at Elmhurst College have decided (based on no real evidence, just observation) to not include the students in the Elmhurst Life Skills Academy, ELSA, which is a college program for students with special needs in the freshman orientation in the fall with the typical college students. We have been to a few meetings with different administrators about how wrong it is NOT to include them! We have also mentioned that this is going against everything we are being taught in ALL of our courses at school. I want to attach a website of a petition some of my fellow peers have created. We want to spread this news to anyone and everyone. It is just such an important issue that can easily be fixed with the help many of my peers would love to volunteer our time for in order to see them included. Please consider signing it and passing it along as well.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/orientationforelsastudents/signatures
I will keep you updated on my reading the book! I really look forward to it.
Much love,
Caitlin