School Community Helps Peer Experience Dolphin Therapy Through the effort of students and staff at Trailwood earlier this year, a student and her family members were able to take the trip of a lifetime. While on a previous trip in Key Largo, Fla., Pam Stevens, a special education specialist at the school, learned about Island Dolphin Care. Stevens knew the therapeutic program would be perfect for Audri Gray, a Trailwood soon-to-be fourth-grader who has special needs. With the help of staff members, Audri was accepted into the program. Then last December, students and staff began work to raise funds to help Audri, her sister Eliana, and her parents make the trip. Students and staff were eager to help the effort, providing donations and contributions in a variety of ways, including a highly successful popcorn sale, Stevens said. “She is just a special little soul that impacts our community everyday,” Stevens said. More than a year after Stevens’s original idea, the Trailwood community reached its goal. The Gray family made their trip to Island Dolphin Care in Florida this spring. The family sent updates and members of the school community were able to see photos and videos of Audri interacting with the dolphins. There was so much interest from the school, the Island Dolphin Care website briefly crashed. “Everybody was tracking their experience,” Hatsie Lawrence, special education teacher, said. After returning from the therapeutic experience, instructors noticed that Audri was more confident, assertive, and determined. The Gray family is very grateful for the entire experience, Staci Gray, Audri’s mother, said. “It was just surreal, all of it,” Staci Gray said. “The school came together as a community and as a family. They were all a part of this and I can’t wrap my mind around it. They are amazing people here.”
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 15:40:45 +0000
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