What's been happening at CiK
The first quarter of 2024 has ended, and as usual, we are so proud of the work we are doing at Communication is Key AAC. As we swing into the spring season, we wanted to share this quote from the fabulous Audrey Hepburn “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” At CiK we feel like we are constantly planting the seeds of the future – for a world of inclusivity for all our multi-modal communicators. Thanks to the efforts of our board members, volunteers, and supporters we are able to continue this mission. Some of the highlights from the past few months are below!
We have started to gift out playground communication boards this year and have donated boards to Monroe Elementary Center (Wyandotte), Van Buren Early Childhood Center (Van Buren), Burger Bailey Transition (Garden City), Schweitzer Elementary School (Westland), Metro EHS Therapy Center (Plymouth), and Hevel Elementary (Romeo). The application process is currently open for playground boards and we look forward to gifting out more this year! We also donated funds to Detroit Achievement Academy, a public charter school that serves 350 students from kindergarten through 8th grade. This donation will be used to fulfill literacy tools for a middle school special needs classroom.
In the month of February, we gifted out another large Core in the Community donation to the first responders in Plymouth and Plymouth Township. They received 40 bags containing communication boards, weighted lap pads, noise canceling headphones, and fidgets to help our complex communicators in emergent situations. Additionally, we also provided them with a training video. Our work was featured in the Plymouth Pulse Magazine. We also honored caregivers and celebrated a lucky winner with a $100 gift card for laundry service. The month was rounded out with another successful fundraiser thanks to our amazing supporters. As expected, we sold out of our 2024 Super Bowl Squares which helped to raise a nice amount of funds to gift back to our community!
In March, our director Julia Dapkus attended the Autism Alliance of Michigan’s annual Navigating Autism Today Conference at the Suburban Collection Showplace for a day of collaborating and spreading awareness. We also held a very fun giveaway that month to celebrate National Reading Month, where one of our lucky followers received a bundle of 9 sensory-rich books. Lastly, we were so excited to gift an iPad with an AAC app to a sweet little boy in the Michigan area. He was born with Down Syndrome and is currently considered nonverbal but has shown he really wants to communicate. We hope this donation will help him find his voice!
We are now fully in the midst of April, also known as Autism Acceptance Month. This is a time for many of us on the board to celebrate the achievements of our own children, just as we celebrate the achievements of many of the individuals we serve in our community.
Last but not least, we are taking a break and NOT doing our annual golf outing fundraiser event this fall. This was a tough decision, but we will be back even bigger and better in 2025! However, if you’d still like to support and donate to our mission, you can find us on Venmo or Paypal!
Julia & CiK Crew
