Workers with Autism are Advantage for Florida Family Car Wash

If you're in the Northeast, hope you're recovering from the storm. Check out this story -- especially the video -- it will be a great way to start your day wherever you are.

Most car washes are filled with less-than-enthusiastic workers. But in Parkland, Fla., there’s a place to clean your car where the employees — 80 percent of which are along the autism spectrum — are extremely excited about their daily responsibilities, making the turnover rate is almost non-existent.

Started by the father-and-son team of John and Tom D’Eri, Rising Tide Car Wash gives their son and brother, Andrew, who was identified as an autistic individual at the age of three, and its other employees the chance to lead a fulfilling life.

The Man Who Left Wall Street Behind

Feel Good Friday and this is a great way to start your day.

Ben Wright began seeing the world differently when his two youngest children were born with Down syndrome.
He realized educational and career opportunities would be much tougher to come by for kids that are deemed less able to succeed in the eyes of society, so he decided to leave his job at a Wall Street firm and ensure a future for children like his own.

Intensive Job Training Key for Young Adults with Autism

Intensive job training helps young people with autism get work, a small new study found.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that can range from mild to severe, affecting social and communication skills. About 80 percent of 18- to 22-year-olds with an autism spectrum disorder are unemployed after leaving school, according to the researchers.

Defying the Odds with a Job

LAWRENCE, Kan.  — Lawrence man Ryan Banning is in every sense of the word an entrepreneur. For more than a decade, Banning, 36, has operated his own business, Ryan's Vending Service, managing a dozen or so vending machines in Lawrence.

He's always looking to expand, he said as he loaded the soda and snack machines at the Lawrence Municipal Airport recently.

And the bottom line for Ryan, who has Down syndrome, is that he enjoys the work and turns a profit.

Life After High School and Other Challenges

MINNEAPOLIS -- Sam Hesla loves basketball, tennis and karate. He DJs at weddings and high school graduations. The 21-year-old hates the idea that his sister, who is two years younger than him, might move out of his mom’s house first.
Hesla has Down syndrome, and although he’s broken many of the stereotypes associated with the disability, he may never live entirely independently. Housing is just one of many details he and his family are grappling with as he graduates from Minneapolis Public Schools’ Transition Plus program, designed for 18- to 21-year-olds with disabilities.
Hesla is in the middle of what some experts call the “transition cliff,” a time in the life of a young person with a disability when they leave the hyper-structured universe of public special education and enter a much less supportive adult world.

Aging Out: 'Like Falling Off a Cliff'

Sad but powerful story focusing on the lack of adult services. It's not just Michigan. All states need to address this and the numbers demonstrate the need.

TROY, Mich. -- Nick Gammicchia knows exactly what he's going to do in the future.

Nick Gammicchia uses a driver
simulator at a driving school.

"I'm going to Hollywood to help out movie producers, storyboard artists," Gammicchia said.
He already has drawn several storyboards and even sent a storyboard and screenplay to director Steven Spielberg.
"He's got big dreams," his mother, Carolyn Gammicchia, said with a smile.

'What Happens When They Become Adults?'

Like most teenagers, 18-year-old Ryan Wall enjoys playing sports, attending high school football games and dances, and socializing with friends. But as Ryan nears the end of his senior year at Naperville Central, his parents face an unsettling question … now what?
Theirs is not the usual anxiety of parents whose children must choose between college and work. Ryan is autistic. Although Naperville has a transitional program after high school to help prepare him for adulthood, those services will end the day before he turns 22.
For his mother and father, Jama and Bob Wall, thinking about the decisions that have to be made can be overwhelming. Where is he going to live and work? Who is going to take care of him when they are gone?

As Jama Wall said, “With more and more kids being diagnosed, what happens when they become adults?”

Preparing for Life After High School

McKenzie Tavary is on a mission to prove to the world that people with disabilities are smart.
Although she doesn't speak, "Mokn," which she calls herself, communicates by typing on a computer and once wrote, "God put me on this Earth to be an Angel to show people how smart I am and other people with disabilities."
The world may soon find out.
Tavary, 19, has been working for the past year since graduating from Capital High School to learn life skills. This fall she is set to start college at University of Montana–Helena, where she’ll be the first nonverbal student with autism to attend the two-year school.