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Dearest Family, Friends and Colleagues,
We are so excited and full of anticipation to share with you a beautiful story of success and hope.
My dear friends, Erik and Cynthia, were blessed with a little boy, Garrett, whom I’ve come to know and love very much. During his first Christmas, in December 2002, they started to notice that he was not developing as a little baby should. That following January Garrett had his first seizure at four months old. He continued to grow, but Erik and Cynthia were starting to notice more signs that something further was wrong, they exhausted every avenue available to discover the reason why. By the time Garrett reached 21 months old he was given the devastating diagnosis of Autism. Determined that Garrett would not become another statistic Erik and Cynthia did everything in their power to help their son, including speech therapy, beginning at just 24 months. Erik and Cynthia then began to learn sign language in order to communicate with their son. Eventually, he began to speak and communicate his wants, needs, and thoughts. Today at age 6 Garrett has just graduated from his weekly speech therapy sessions and is a beautiful, extremely intelligent, healthy boy. He also happens to be my son’s best friend and neighbor.
His parents give much of the credit to Garrett’s recovery to the speech therapy that he received. They noticed that many of Garrett’s outburst and frustrations were due to his inability to communicate. So after Garrett’s completion of speech therapy they decided to start a non-profit foundation, Three Little Words, in honor of Garrett and as a thank you to the speech pathologists who have helped Garrett along the way. This foundation will be responsible for raising funds to pay for the necessary intervention for other children in need of speech therapy.
This, of course, would be a huge task for Erik and Cynthia to take on by themselves. Cynthia called and asked me if I would be interested in helping her take on this challenge. Without hesitation, I answered yes. This cause will benefit thousands of children across the nation. As an educator I see children everyday with learning disabilities and speech impediments that would benefit immensely from speech therapy. Quite simply there is not enough help available for the children within the school system. The School Districts are unable to adequately fill the demand with the few speech therapists that they have serving thousands of children. Many families desire to place their child in private speech therapy, but unfortunately are not able to afford to do so.
With this in mind we have come together and designed our foundation, Three Little Words with this mission:
The Three Little Words Foundation is dedicated to provide financial support to children with speech and or language delays.
Throughout Erik and Cynthia’s struggles in helping Garrett they witnessed too many children not receiving the necessary services. Valuable time is being lost due to the lack of funding. What we do know is this:
- Speech Therapy has a proven record of success, overcoming speech disorders, in as little as 6 months once proper services are received.
- For the average family speech therapy will cost them over $2,500 in as little as eight months. Insurance rarely covers this amount.
- Schools do not have enough resources to help all of the children in need of speech therapy. Currently, they are able to receive one hour in a group of children no less than five children, on average. This translates into 15 minutes, at best, of therapy a week.
- The current California State budget is dramatically impacting the lives and future of our children. Thus far the California State Budget, for 2009-2010, has cut over $500 million in funding to regional centers alone! This is just the beginning.
- With a 4 fold increase in the numbers of children with autism, there has been a 30 fold increase in the numbers of children with speech and language disorders in the past ten years.
Three Little Words is the first foundation of its kind. Let me repeat this, Three Little Words is the first foundation of it’s kind. No other foundation exists for the sole purpose of funding children to go to private speech therapy. Currently, Three Little Words is being made into a non-profit corporation. We are diligently working with attorneys to ensure our dream for Three Little Words becomes a reality. However, we need your help! In order to raise funds to cover the start up expenses we are looking to you for a $30 gift.
Although the need is high, here is how Three Little Words is going to help our children:
- Three Little Words will cover the costs of the speech and or language assessment and the recommended therapy schedule. No matter the cause for the speech delay.
- Three Little Words will target children ages 3-10.
- Funds will be paid directly to the therapist office and not to the child or child’s family.
We have high goals and a lot to accomplish in the future. Time is wasting and we cannot count on the state any longer to help. Our children are our future and hope for this country and we cannot allow these children to be passed over or forgotten. However, Three Little Words is unable to go any further without your immediate donation of $30. Our goal is to raise enough immediate funds so that we may begin serving children by August 1, 2009. In order to do so, we need to raise $40,000. This includes all of our start up expenses, legal fees and enough to fund children for the first month. We will not be able to meet our goal and begin serving children unless we receive your generous donation by June 25, 2009. Please know that your $30 gift is greatly appreciated, furthermore no gift would be considered too great or too small and if you are unable to give at this time we understand. In any case, we ask that you would forward this letter to others who you feel would support a charity such as Three Little Words.
For your convenience we have set up a web-site,
www.helpchildrenspeak.org
where you are able to make your donations safely and securely.
Please keep in mind that if all of our paper work is accepted, your donations will be tax deductible. The attorney we are working with has set up over 30 non-profits with 100% success rate, so we are confident we will have no issue in this process. As soon as everything is confirmed, we will contact you regarding any donation made.
Thank you for your help in making Three Little Words a reality.
Sincerely,
Mary, Cynthia and Erik
Founders of Three Little Words
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We had the best day at the L.A Arboretum
Luke by a huge art sculpture made only with twigs
