Inclusion and more

Best Buddies Arizona's state Young Leaders Council, CORE was established by Sam Mason who needed help running state events and implementing new Best Buddies initiatives. CORE started out with 7 people on it and how there are 11 people.  BBAZ CORE at Comm Cafe 2016 I was first introduced to CORE during Time to Shine last August. Colby Lancaster, a CORE member invited me to sell raffle tickets with her before the Talent Track started. Colby and I walked around Phoenix Center of the Arts to sell tickets to event attendees. CORE members like Colby Lancaster and Karly Pillbury was drawn to my assertiveness to ask people to buy tickets.  After being introduced to CORE during Time to Shine in August 2015, I spent a few months thinking about applying to serve a year term.   When the application for the 2016 year came out I filled it out.  I interviewed with Sam Mason, BBAZ's now former Deputy Director of Development and she a...

In my future, I want to teach elementary education so I can educate students in younger grades. I want to prove that people with disabilities like autism can become teachers and get their own classrooms. I am still deciding between preschool, kindergarten or second grade. I am going to observe my teacher friends who teach those grades at Christ Lutheran School.  In my future, I want to live on my own at Treasure House, the group home being built by Kurt and Brenda Warner. I want to live there because we know Kurt and Brenda through my involvement in Best Buddies. Treasure House will allow residents like myself to live in 30 individual apartments and will be housed on Aspera of Joy in Glendale.  In my future, I want to stay involved in Best Buddies. I will stay involved in eBuddies, a Best Buddies program that creates opportunities for one-to-one email friendships for those with and without disabilities and will stay in Best Buddies at Arizona State University. I cannot im...

These days people who have disabilities face many challenges. I have autism. Autism makes it difficult for me to be in situations where loud noise is present, difficult for me to accept constructive criticism and hard to deal with change. When there is loud noise present in a situation, I have to remove myself from the situation. When music is loud at a concert, I wear ear plugs.  For the most part, I am good at dealing with change but it can be challenging when there is a fire drill or lockdown drill at work that mess up my schedule. Having autism makes it so I LIKE to have a routine. I have gotten better with accepting criticism as a result of working at Medtronic last year and having reviews and working at CLS this year and my boss Mrs. Ehlers giving me feedback that I need to work on. The interesting thing is that when she gives me feedback I am motivated by it and instantly start working on the goals. I am a goal-driven person which has grabbed the att...

I first met current Young Leaders Council chair Dani Warmund in the summer of July 2013 during Leadership Conference in Indiana. We hit it off and developed a close friendship. It was not until Leadership Conference in July 2014 that our friendship really continued to grow. I was one of the two vice chairs so I got to work close with Dani to improve the Best Buddies International Young Leaders Council.  The two of us FaceTime'd often outside of YLC conference calls to catch up about life, Best Buddies and anything else.  The two of us continued to develop our friendship after my two-year term on the Best Buddies International Young Leaders Council ended in July 2013. We continue to FaceTime as often as our schedules allow and she met my mom Kelly and sisters Kate and Molly at the Best Buddies Leadership Conference this past summer. She also met my dad Doug while we were in Miami, Florida for the Best Buddies Miami Gala and Dani was there for a Be...