When her son Alex neared his first communion, Francesca Pellegrino wanted to enroll her son in Catholic school, but found there were few options at the small institutions for a boy with mild cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities.
Alex, now 17, never did end up going to Catholic school. But Pellegrino, of Kensington, MD., wanted to make sure other children would get the chance.
"I started talking to other families and realized I was not alone," she said. So with the help of other parents brainstorming "around the dining room table," in 2004 she founded the Catholic Coalition for Special Education, a nonprofit organization that awards grants to Maryland Catholic schools to help pay the salaries of special education teachers and aids. The organization recently awarded $107,500 in grants to seven Maryland schools. The program encourages the schools to provide as much interaction between special education students and students in the general classroom as possible, a connection Pellegrino said equally benefits both groups.
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