When my youngest son was only 1 1/2 he was diagnosed with severe autism.

From that time on, our family has been dedicated to raising awareness in order to help remove the stigma that people place on individuals with autism so that they are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. We constantly discuss how our actions can help others and promote our children to seek out those who are alone, sad, or different in order to help them know that they are special. My daughter, Jordan, has a huge heart for children with special needs. As her mom, I saw this compassion in her from a young age, so I gave her opportunities to help make a difference. With the help of her cousins, they held lemonade and snow cone stands each year at a local grocery store raising thousands of dollars for autism charities.

She loves to tell people information about autism and wants to work with kids with special needs when she grows up. She also has a special talent for writing. After success with the lemonade stands, she and her best friend/cousin, Makaylee, decided to find new ways to raise money and began re-writing popular Taylor Swift songs for charity donations. With their first song, they raised over $1,000 for Autism Speaks. Their second song was even more personal. We applied and Jacob was accepted into an autism service dog program but we found out that we needed to raise $13,500 for the dog. They immediately went to writing and producing this song that took many hours to complete. Through a miracle TAYLOR SWIFT and her mom saw it and donated $10,000! Not only were we so thankful to them and now will be getting a service dog for Jacob, but I was so happy that our girls got to see their hard work make such a tremendous difference. I feel that allowing opportunities for our children to serve others gives them compassion beyond their years and can lead to incredible things. I have seen it with my own eyes! We are so thankful for our precious girl and her big heart.