I haven’t said anything about this until now because I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on and I didn’t want to say something until I knew for sure. However, today it actually happened.

The Foundation for Community Betterment

Earlier this year I was contacted by a friend from high school, Denise. She had been following our story and had actually been helping me out with some logo art work. She is a member of an organization called The Foundation for Community Betterment.

Excerpt from their website:

 “The Foundation for Community Betterment is a national organization dedicated to community enhancement by creating an immediate, positive impact on the lives of individuals or organizations that share our philanthropic vision, but who currently lack the means to succeed.” 

The recipients may be individuals who are having difficulties in life, be it from illness, natural disaster, poverty or just simple bad luck but have also demonstrated generosity, courage and commitment to charitable causes and community generosity, even in the face of their troubles. The foundation also supports organizations that are striving to make a philanthropic impact in their communities and neighborhoods. Our hope is that support from Betterment will be a gift that keeps on giving — when our recipients continue to positively impact those around them.

Basically, The Foundation for Community Betterment wanted to help my family because of our uniquely challenging situation and because of the advocacy for Autism that I do. Check out the links above for more information.

How exactly did Betterment help?

Denise nominated my family to be a 2011 grant recipient. We were asked to identify a few things that could make our lives better, regardless of what they were.  After very careful thought, Lizze and I made our list. This was actually really uncomfortable because we don’t usually ask for help so we felt quite selfish in the beginning. When asked for our first choice we choose Central Air for the house.

While this may sound more like a luxury then a necessity, there are much bigger reasons for this decision. Emmett likes to climb the windows, as I have mentioned before. He has already gone through one of the 2nd floor windows in Elliott’s room last year. Open windows with something we have to be very careful with. We have tried only having the top sash open but he still climbs them. So there are very real safety concerns that we constantly worry about. When we would open a window we generally put a large piece of furniture in front of it to obstruct any attempts from Emmett to climb them.

Another issue is that the second floor is like a sauna during the summer. The boys, especially Emmett and Gavin struggle with the heat and humidity. With their sensory issues the environment is not well tolerated. Emmett just screams when his skin gets hot and sticky.

The last reason we made this choice was that everyone in the house has pretty bad allergies. So not only are they struggling with the heat but they would also cough, sneeze and have a runny nose. ASD kids don’t always do well with these types of things.

So we figured that central air would help to make their lives a bit easier and honestly, ours as well. The truth is that I had actually forgotten about this whole thing because we had our hands full with everything else we have going on all the time. However, last week I received a phone call……..

Continue reading part 2…  CKP Heating and Cooling: Paying it forward

Find and “Like” The Foundation for Community Betterment on Facebook and follow them on Twitter