Pine,P A – Two 14-year-olds Maria Ciao of Ross, and Isabella Habserstock of Pine earned The Silver Award, Girl Scoutings second highest honor, for writing a book about autism. The book took them three years, from sixth to eighth grade, to complete the book which is titled My Amazing Graceland.
Isabella told Tribe Total Media:
“Elementary school kids are old enough to know about autism and to respect that children with autism are different and may need a little more help. Whenever they see a child with autism, we want them to know how to interact and understand them better,”
To research the book and to complete their required 50 hours of volunteering they both donated their time to horse therapy center Glade Run Lutheran Services in Zelienople. The groomed therapy horses and clean their stalls. They also brought ought one of the white horse and let children with autism finger paint the animal.
When they saw the how one horse Memphis, a 40-year-old Tennessee Walker, helped the children they knew he had to one to tell the story. Each written page was provided by the Isabella and Maria provided the photos of Memphis.
The used shutterfly.com to create and print the 38 page book and ordered ten copies, eating costing 30 to print. They distributed the 10 out to schools and individuals and hope to print more soon.
The original article by Laurie Rees on the Tribe Total Media website can be found here
Contributed by Audrey L. Hollingshead