I would say I can’t believe nearly an entire week slipped past me, but there’s been a fair amount of turmoil swirling around the non-profits I work with and some other obligations. The irony of course is this is “the slow time of year” for a number of organizations/individuals. As I’ve explained in previous posts, that doesn’t hold true for Hubby and me.

Anyway, in writing for our weekly community paper, “heartwarming” is one of the areas I specialize in. A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a Facebook post from one of our council members who has a great non-profit of, This Is For The Kids. It’s another one of those that began quietly and small and they’ve steadily grown it. Not beyond local size, but still quite respectable. They do different things throughout the year, but their big event is an annual Rib Fest. In the summer, they select 5 non-profits that mostly (or exclusively) support kid causes. The proceeds from the Oct Rib Fest is then split among the selected five. So, the founder is always on the lookout for other situations and he ran across one a few weeks ago that I then picked up on for a story. It was the the lead piece in the July 20th edition (http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/eedition)

The summary is a young man who was a very promising athlete had swapped from track and field into football. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind he would be a college star with a decent shot at the pros. That was before the automobile wreck where his two best friends were killed and he was left paralyzed from the waist down. You can imagine the impact on the families and fellow students. This is a “small town” despite a rise in population and the track and field coach for one of the other high schools knew of the young man’s athleticism. No one here is involved in adaptive sports, but the coach was sure Isaac would have the ability if he was willing to make the effort.

They worked together for him to focus on wheelchair races, discus, javelin, and shot-put. Not only has he excelled, he is being invited to be a motivational speaker by some notable area athletes. In raising money for him to be able to go to the Junior Olympics last week, he brought home more medals and made more contacts. The hope is he can get a scholarship to one of the colleges/universities where they have an adaptive sports program.