3rd Annual Apraxia Awareness walk ....

On Oct 21st all of the work our daughter Nicole had

been doing over the past year came together for the

3rd Apraxia Awareness walk

Speech Apraxia is what our oldest grandson Maddox has

he is 12 years old and non-verbal

as in he speaks no words at all

and even with that struggle, he is just the sweetest

guy you can ever meet

Our daughter put this together 3 years ago in an effort to meet

other families who deal with this disability

Because then, we knew of no one

Now with this walk, she has met many families

I believe 8 in the Richmond area!

She is very lucky that the Sports Center of Richmond

host the event

And our family member Alex who owns Digital Video Group

is one of the sponsors and donates use

of the sound system

the walkers swag bags.....t-shirt, water bottle, stickers

We make posters for each of the "shining stars"

(the children who have apraxia)

we ask the walkers to autograph the posters and the

children love taking them home

new this year was a photo booth

Nicole made special swag bags for the parents

who have children with apraxia

Tyler and Lorraine

Jacquelyn and Avery

sister-in-law Susan and niece Abby helping

hand out the bags and shirts

great nephew Marshall

My brother Tracy providing entertainment to the kids!

our grandson Maddox....now almost as tall as me!

 our son Jake and his wife Kayce....our new daughter-in-law 

Gabe.....Nicole and Tyler's son who is the biggest help 

out of everyone!!!

and he is so great with his 2 brothers and sister

cousins.....Lorraine and Avery

Nicole welcoming the crowd, thanking people,

handing out the medals to the children

She does such a great job and Johnny and I are very proud of her

Maddox coming down the steps to receive his medal

Nicole so happy to start the walk

Nicole and Maddox....why she does this, it's all for him!

this little volunteer is tired!

photo booth fun

I could only put up pictures of my family as I do

not have permission to put up other people's pictures

we had about 80 people attend this year and raised just over 7k

so another successful walk and we are hoping

for an even bigger crowd next year

later.....

Apraxia Walk ...

Saturday, Oct 22nd was the second ever

Walk for Apraxia Awareness in Richmond, VA

brief history.....our grandson has a very severe case of Apraxia

He does not speak, he tries to make sounds and sometimes

he can but that's it. Our daughter last year thought of why not

have a walk to raise awareness for Apraxia. We knew of no one

that had this. So she thought by doing this she could meet other

families and build a community. CASANA told her you may have trouble.

They told her others had tried to have a walk and they were

not able to get it off the ground. 

But she thought why not try.

So last year was the first ever walk in Richmond. 

they had warned her don't be surprised if it's really small

and you don't raise much money

well it surprised everyone, the walk last year raised 

just over 12k and there were lots of walkers!!

This year, the second one, was not as big. Nicole was so busy with

a new baby she said she just didn't have the time to work

on it much. But was still nice, raised almost 4k and had about 

100 people so that was great. 

the 6 children there that have apraxia, they thought it was great

Our Maddox was in all of his glory!!

here's our son Jake and his fiancee working the registration table

Jacquelyn, Avery and our friend Debra worked the t-shirt table

here is my sister Kandi and my niece's husband Alex

Alex was so generous and set up the PA system for the walk

Really great to have family support and have them

just come to the walk

Nicole has a few tables set up with crafts for the kids to work on

Maddox had so much fun making the paper plate pumpkins

She has the event at the Sports Center of Richmond

nice to have indoor space especially on Saturday when it

was so windy. I couldn't imagine if we had to have all of this outside!

 here is Nicole with one of the Shining Stars, Brayden

He was one of the participants last year so we

all loved seeing him come back

here's part of my silly group....haha

Maddox's brother....John Thomas

Maddox's sister, Lorraine

I could not take a picture of Maddox's other brother Gabe

poor guy had poison ivy all over his face :(

Even the adults were having fun painting the Halloween mask

One of my little Princess'.....Lorraine, 11 months old

My other little Princess.....Avery Grace, 17 months old

our sweet "almost" daughter-in-law Kayce

My sister Vickie who was one of the volunteers

Another shining star, Katie

we made posters for each of them

Shining star Brad

Our 2 beautiful daughters

later......