to find a puzzle pieces create i don't he's going to explain that but i'm bringing him back again because of the challenges he has faced in life and how he has taunt may give in to positive and it's something that i want my viewers squared it's really created because of my own children puzzle pieces the national basically the national object that represents autism because a puzzle piece of more different they all different edges different things and that represents the fact of autism autism is somebody different views of the spectrum all the way from this side all the way to the other side you can have cognitive all the way to social so that's why the puzzle pieces if peace isn't squared because i have two children so it's near and dear to my heart and i started that that's where the name came from the reason why i started it is because it's a couple years ago you know after my kids were diagnosed with autism and i was trying to you know create more awareness on a facebook page and create more where in their awareness of what autism was i tried to think how can i help you know how can i make a difference because my wife and i through a couple  years we really felt stuck you know like our kids like every parent wants to do what's best for their children but a lot of times especially with special needs and especially autism it's hard to figure out what that is because they don't tell you because they're stuck in their own world and they're doing with their own thing so for them to communicate back to you it's like a maze so there are a lot of nationally recognized  autism things out there autism speaks is huge but when i looked into what autism speaks was it was a lot about research it was a lot about how we can fix it later ok and what we can do for it in that regard i was like what can i do right now just like i do with my fitness studio how can i make an impact right now and i came up with this great idea that i was going to create this five a one c three foundation that was going to provide up to seventy five hundred dollars grants to four families in the tri state area that could help with insurance costs a b a therapy speech therapy food therapy respite care camps to aids all these stuff that that insurance doesn't pay for because insurance looks at it and says well you don't really need that but i don't really know what you need what would make your family better what would be that missing piece that i could put back in that would bring your family whole they don't know so i was like i can do that so i came up with this creed idea that i was going to provide to these families and i started out small i was like how my going to do this what can i do and i reached out to school districts and they were blown away like you want to give us money and i'm like yes what do you need and they needed i pads and computers and different things to help their sensory children you know people that need i pads to communicate i mean it's hard to imagine but there are children out there that their only communication is i pads ok and computers so it started out that way and then people started finding out about me and i you know i have women and mothers and families that reach out to me because they're lost and they you know and they come to me and they're like i want to make my son or daughter happy i want to provide i'm a single mom trying to provide insurance has dropped me i have nothing but my son needs a b a therapy to survive four times a week what am i going to do and they're like we didn't even know you existed i interview them and i meet them and i say you know what i can help them and i pay the whole bill you know i pay the whole bill for them to have therapy for their child for three months and it doesn't seem like it would make a difference but it does and then day reach out to other people who need help with you know all the kid wants to do is go outdoors but they can't afford to send the kid to camp because he needs a one on one aide to keep an eye on him because of his special needs and i provide the cost for the one on one aide there's things like this that people don't think about you know now i started it obviously because i felt stuck i was crushed when i when my children were born one i found out my one son had autism before i found out my other one and they're twins so when i fell i doubt i was crushed because every parent dreams if they have a boy or girl what that child who's going to be they're going to play a sport i'm going to they're going to go to their first prom they're going to do all this like you think about that and when you're told that you have these trials and tribulations that you didn't know about that through what life throws it curveball at you you look at it and you're like on how do i do and one of my great clients but also my kids pediatrician said to me and i never forget it you need to mourn th perfect child first and what that means is you need to get out of your head what you know what raising these children is going to be like because that's not their reality the reality is different and that's not a negative it's just you have to adapt and you have to move on so i did i mourned what i thought things were going to be like and oversight in i realized it's going to be fairer piece in home out a home it's going to be different classes in school it's might be different future but it doesn't have to be a negative you know and he stays children they feed on your energy and if you're negative they feed on that so what i do is i provide hope to these families i have been told numerous times it's a very said said he makes me cry every time but i hope the family last year he needed sensory output so i provided a trampoline outside for him to jump on ok this child drew me a picture of a trampoline brought it in on father's day to me and i opened it and it's a picture and it's a son and the mother says to me you are the sun in our lives to make a difference like that is it's better than anything is better than any job it's it is so rewarding that i can help these people you know i just built a tree house because once one of these children that i helped doesn't do well in social situations and he needs just somewhere he could go outside so i have build him a tree house that now he can go into and that's his own personal heaven these things are amazing and a lot of people you know before i meet them they're down on their luck and when they do talk to me they're they're crying and the emotional and they think i'm an angel that was sent to them you know to make their lives better and i said i'm not an angel i'm just a helping hand i am here to help and i hope you pay it forward and maybe you tell three other people that you see on a regular basis that there is hope out there and that there's a different direction that your family can go and life is about trials and tribulations it really is but it's how you handle them and these families deal with things that people in a typical family situations can even imagine so that's really why i started it i wanted to make a difference and the other thing is how many people donate to charities and don't know where the money go correct i hate that i literally hate that that i can raise all this money and i can give it to a foundation that pays for salaries and advertising correct everything about me it's volunteer cora i do it all volunteer so all my donors and everybody that supports me every year at my huge gala every here everybody does that knows that the money is making a difference in these families lives these families come and they give speeches on what it is meant to them and all the sun in these people open their hearts because it's amazing if you know how you're making a difference and it to me ever since i did it's a lot of work it's a lot of work but i would never ever not do it and i love fitness and what i do with that but when people ask me now my legacy i want to be puzzle pieces squared you know he's such to me because i can understand i don't especially for my viewers is to look at the positive the positive from your angle because i can't imagine how you would all you know you took all these negative out of the your cross  the cost of operations at the end of the be the money or if one does not really get to the recipient for the different with you and i love that and it's something that i really want to want to to keep doing because i know it's going to take you places where you're go government that doing enough it's almost like a loaded question because there are services out there if you advocate if you're an advocate for your child but a lot of people do not have the time to be an advocate for their child the way that you need to be if you have an autistic child most families have only single income because if they if  husband and wife work one of them has to quit their job because they have to be a twenty four seven correct advocate for their child the other thing is public school systems unless they are really shown that they need to do it they don't want to spend the money ok so it's a lot of rigamarole to get through where you're constantly fighting for your child now if you keep fighting at the end of that rope is the gold you will hit what you need for your child but so many people get so discouraged now that the school system part of it insurance because autism has become such a big her own broa to give you an idea in the school system my one son qualified in the umbrella my other son was on the line ok which meant that there aren't as many services available there aren't as many things that these these therapy places in stuff are willing to do because they don't look at it the same way because insurance is want to spend money they don't want to keep spending and now autism such a big umbrella that you know and now this could be because there's so much more awareness now because everybody remembers growing up and you're in a in a classroom and there was that child that was in kuai you just couldn't put your finger on it cora right chances are that child had some form of a sensory disorder or it might not have been autism but it could have been something now because there's so much more early intervention and testing you know they're so quick to say that your child has this or not because they're worried about being sued or they're wary about their not doing what needs to be done the insurance now has so many people coming at them for services they don't want to pay for so my thing is if you look at all these things the services are out there the contacts are out there there are a lot of my foundations out there most of them are bigger and they're about research and don't get me wrong research is important we need research ok or else we won't know fifty years from now what's going on but it's more important now to try to figure out what is out there in your area that can help you and my foundation does that as well we have some people that come to us and they're looking for help and you know my foundation i we look at it and we're like that's not really what we do ok but then we say we direct we direct them to different services to different places where they can get help so it is out there you just have to do the work and it's very stressful it's a lot of headaches a lot of people get very ill trying to take care of their children my wife was one of them so i understand it and i live it and i see it but if you keep your  focused at the task at hand you can get what you need to because it is out there it's just extremely difficult to find interesting now you know a little stigma comps with when it comes to kids living with disability or family living with i only focused on my family and the people that mattered to my family and i didn't pay attention to any outside influence i used to be the parent that would be embarrassed when my son would do something or have some sort of autistic episode you know and target and i was one of those people that in the beginning all my stress was coming from because all my got it ever was in a look at me they're going to think i'm doing something wrong in my bed parents you know and then i realize they don't know me that i'm ok they don't know me just like i don't know that everybody's fighting a battle you don't know about everyone in life ok so i think that was the big thing ok and then i was trying to surround yourself with the people that understand the people that are nonjudgmental and i'm not saying everybody judge mental because judge mental is a negative connotation word ok i don't believe that they're judge mental i believe they're scared i believe they don't have enough knowledge and they don't know how to react ok they don't know i've had friends that i've lost because they didn't react around my kids they didn't know what was right and they thought like that it was offered for them and you know it made them uncomfortable aura and because it made them uncomfortable judge mental was not what they were they were scared cora they were scared just like my wife and i were but we were in it living in aurora and they were on the outside looking in so i think that that it's not that people are negative or are jared's mental or are negative toward you i think it's an unknown and people are afraid of the young no and i think the best way to help people that are afraid of the unknown is educate educate teach show them you know the joys i say this all the time every time that my galah we have situations the bring us to tears and then we have situations there were laughing our ass off because because they bring so much joy and miracle on a regular basis for and cherish those miracles the only look at the at the at the at the tri you know cherish the happy times and focus on the miracles focus on what makes your child in your situation a beautiful beautiful miracle why you close the doors against it's awareness that we're out there every family i run into our i help one of the first things they say to me is how do you know you're out there where did you come from i think that that is key getting it out there that there are and there are other smaller ones as well that there are a few local foundations they're out there trying to make a difference and it doesn't have to be those big corporations and i'm not taking anything away from the corporations they are important but they are important and other in other ways we are important and what we do for you right now you need help right now we're here for you so i think awareness getting us out there to the world is important  all spelled out dot org and you go there and there's a contact us page there there's all about my family there's all about the nine families in the three school districts that we've helped already and all about what our mission is and what we're trying to accomplish i also have a facebook page as well puzzle pieces squared and those are the two and instagram same thing they are all ways to get in touch and really see what we're out there doing but i really suggest the people that want to know more about puzzle pieces squared go to that website and check it out go to the p two family section and really read the stories and it so my ocean all it is such an emotional thing but if you can't read these stories be acting though because i guess i would say it this way life works in mysterious ways and you never know when something's going to go back in your direction but what i try to tell everybody in any trial and tribulation situation is just look at it and know that hope's around the corner puzzle pieces squared is there to provide support you can reach out to us we can you know put you in a certain direction that maybe could help you with services and resources or we might be able to even help somebody that you know with some sort of grant for some way to help you what puzzle pieces square it is is we're filling out that piece that's missing in your family and we're bringing you day and it's an aging dragon that stands for strong and powerful family searching for the key to autism why i wear this every day because every day i'm trying to figure out ways to make people who are in these situations