Welcome to the Daily Grateful, my name is Michael Croce, and today we're going to talk about autism. So, many of you know, or some of you know, I have a son with Down syndrome. He's 44 years old, kicks ass, takes names. When he was born with Down syndrome, I learned everything in the world I could know about Down syndrome.
As a matter of fact, I know more than most doctors knew. I traveled the world learning about Down syndrome. And then I became aware back then, way back then, of autism, but not very often. He didn't see him.
My son had this friend that he went to school with a adorable young lady who had autism. And her parents were in total denial. This girl had every autism thing that could go. Self-harm, no direct eye contact, just all of this stuff.
And they said, oh, she's a little autistic. And they wound up not being able to handle her. And actually put her into some residential thing when she was six years old. I'm like, wow.
So let's fast forward now. Because I want, well, I'm going to do something I haven't done on here. I'm going to do a commercial, but I'm not getting paid for this commercial. I'm doing it absolutely free.
I want you to go to a website. It's called bekindtoeveryone.com. I'm going to say that again, be kind to everyone.com. Because there's a, I think, a 21-year-old young lady named Jordan who has autism.
And she did not talk at all until she was seven. And she struggled. I mean, just really, really struggled in her family. Was very, very, you know, just very worried about her future.
And they came up with something called, this was like in 2020. You know, Jordan at that time was a teenager. And they wanted to teach her job skills to see if that would work. And, but you know, because she was so poor at communication, they didn't exactly know, you know, what to do.
So they started something called the summer shirt project where they designed a shirt that basically said be kind to everyone. And they designed it and it looked really nice in it at art. And it was wonderful. And they made 40 shirts down in their basement.
They, you know, they got a cricket mission. I don't know what they got, but you know, they were able to buy the shirts and they made 40 shirts. And their goal was to sell the 40 shirts over the summer. And that was going to give Jordan training, you know, to teach her how to do a job, to teach her how to have structure and to teach her to do all of these things.
Well, it, you know, the summer, the summer shirt project turned out to be outrageously successful. They were going for their friends and neighbors and relatives. But it just spread like wildfire. And if you go to bekind to everyone.com, that summer shirt project turned into a business that had to move out of the basement and into a outdoor or an outside warehouse that they had to rent, that they now run this business out of.
And I own a couple of shirts. I'm going to buy some more and they're on TikTok. And you can see videos of them making a shirt and Jordan has specific jobs here. Every shirt that is shipped out, she has package, she rolls up the shirt, they, you know, puts them in the bags, adds the other things to it.
And the next little card, I have this card. We would like you to take a photo of your be kind to everyone purchase and post it on our page, which I've done. And they're on Facebook and they're on Instagram and they're on TikTok. That summer shirt project is where you can find them on all those.
And their website is be kind to everyone. The shirts are like $20, $22, something like that. And that includes shipping. And they're very high quality shirts.
And somebody, this was, this was kind of fun. Somebody complained, you know, there's always going to be someone who complains. And someone complained about one of the shirts because she rolls these things up tight to put some in the bag so they're ready for shipping. And they said, oh, you sent me this wrinkled shirt.
What am I supposed to do with this wrinkled shirt? And you know what they did? They created a shirt that I'm wearing right now. And I love it.
It says, it says, I can't look at it. It's in front of me. I'm a proud member of the Wrinkled Mess Club because that's what they said. They're shirts where he wrinkled mess.
And I'm a proud member and there's like a little son on it. And then it says be kind to everyone and Jordan's signature on the bottom. And you get a card with each one with Jordan's signature on the bottom of it. And it's just fantastic.
She's a lovely, it's a lovely family. They're up in Georgia, near Atlanta. And the business is now very successful. And I want it to be successful forever.
It is just so cool. So that's what I've learned. And here's the part that affects me. I have a granddaughter that I love so much.
This young lady is autistic as the day is long. And she reminds me so much of Jordan. She's seven years old now. And for years did not say a word.
Now she's talking. And she goes to a speech therapist two or three times a week. And now not much. But we're getting things out of her.
When I go over there now, she'll look at me and she'll wave and she'll go, hi. And then, you know, I will look at her and I will point to my eye. And she will point to her eye and she'll go, hi. And I'll hold out my hands and she'll go, love.
And then she'll look at me and smile and say, you. And when she does that, I get something that I never get from her, which is eye contact. And it just makes me smile all over. And if I can see her as a 22 year old to be like Jordan, that would make me very, very happy.
So if you run into people with autism, and there's more autism now than ever before and don't, I have no idea why I have absolutely no idea why I have a grandson who is autistic, not as autistic as his sister. He's a excellent communicator. He's an excellent artist. My granddaughter has an iPad and she knows all the games that she likes to do.
She goes on that thing constantly and plays games and she's better at an iPad than I am. So she knows how to get this stuff done. God bless her. I love her for that.
So my grandson has an iPad as well, but he also gets on the computer and he also makes YouTube videos. They don't get published, but he makes YouTube videos. He's too young to have them published in my humble opinion. But he makes pretty cool videos and he's a fabulous artist.
And I think that he communicates well. For a long time, he didn't talk. Now he talks constantly. I will sit there and have conversations with him that just go on forever.
So very delighted with that. I'm looking forward to more conversations with my granddaughter. And I just want us all to be aware of that. And I want you to go to this website.
Again, I just want you to be supportive of this. Be kind to everyone. .com. Be kind to everyone.
.com. Have a terrific day. I was supposed to talk about podcasting today, but I talked about this today. Tomorrow, which is Friday, I will talk about podcasting or maybe something else.
We'll see. Take care.