CAPE CORAL, Fla. — Sports are for everyone and one local nonprofit is making sure of that.
Students with Family Initiative are learning life skills to help them when they're adults.
"They can see all of the good sides of him, and not before everybody was just seeing like all the bad sides,” said Laurena Collea, a parent at Thrive Academy.
Collea tells Fox 4’s Bella Line it's been a relief for her family.
Watch Bella's full report below:
"Before last year, I ended up homeschooling him because he didn't have a space where he fit and it's been really, really exciting to find a place where they want him here,” said Collea.
They added a program to bring wins in and out of the classroom.
"Sports is one thing that we saw that was a gap that we felt like we needed to provide for them,” said David Brown.
David Brown and Anjali VanDrie are the co-founders of Family Initiative, a non-profit that has a school for students who have autism. Their team teaches the students all of the same subjects, but in an environment to help them thrive.
They also started an after school sports program for any child or young adult with autism, and you don't have to be a student to join.
"This program can be a launching pad where our kids can build up confidence to feel like, all right, I feel like I'm ready to go out and maybe try out for Special Olympics,” said Brown.
Collea says three of her children are in the sports program and it's allowed them to play together while giving her support.
"We have a hard time finding sports programs that my kids feel comfortable doing, or I feel safe like letting them go do,” said Collea.
She says she's already seen a change in her son Joseph's social skills.
"We were having a lot of trouble with that before, but he's learned a lot of those type of skills to, like, be able to remove himself from situations and be able to advocate for himself,” said Collea.
The sports program is every Monday from 4-5 p.m., and it's $10 to join.
