Our Story
These real events moved our founder, Gino, and showed him that social connection is essential to human happiness.
Just Like Everyone Else
A young girl with cerebral palsy, Shams, wanted to go to her prom. Her parents paid a paratransit company where I worked and I was asked to do an evening ride to take her there.
“What a different kind of trip”, I thought. “Let’s make this one special.”
And so I put on a suit and helped Shams to have her big moment at prom.
Most people with disabilities cannot afford to pay for such trips and miss out on the big moments in their lives–and the small moments, too.
Shams is nonverbal but she was shaking her arms up and down as we pulled up to the school.
A Memorial for Dad
A family rented for a day a home in the pastures of Mars Hill to celebrate the passing of a father, Jeffrey. Family members drove from as far as Winston-Salem for this reunion.
While only living forty minutes away, Jeffrey’s daughter Amanda would not be able to attend because she could not afford wheelchair transportation.
And so we brought her to be with her family and returned her home the next day. On the ride home she said to me, “I’d forgotten how good it feels to be with my family.”
A Good Day for Horses
Every weekday morning we drive by a small pasture and Old Joe looks out the window for horses that are never there.
“They must be in the barn,” he says.
He looks out for them again in the evening when I drive him back from his adult daycare but the horses are not there. Old Joe had grown up with his father watching Mister Ed, the television show of the talking horse.
On my way to pickup another client for the daycare I drive by a horse sanctuary full of paliminoes and clydesdales. And so I saw a connection.
“How about one day we go feed carrots to the horses, Joe?” I said.
“You know,” he said, “I’d really enjoy that.”
