Project: A Birthday to Remember is a website that was set up by Amy Luckow who has a son with autism, Nicholas aged nearly 13.
The website states:
“This site has been created by a mother of a son with autism. Each year my son’s birthday would come and go and while we would always have a cake, gifts and a few family members there to celebrate it. There were no friends, no kids to play games with, laugh with, take pictures with, build memories with. Each year my heart would ache that I could not give my son a ‘kid party’.”
Autism Daily Newscast contacted Amy to find out more about the project.
Amy explained that Nicholas, who will be 13 on April 9 was diagnosed with classic autism at age 2 although she started questioning his development when he was one year old.
Nicholas is non-verbal but can sometimes use his own words. Amy explains that since starting puberty he has had speech regression but that he has great receptive speech and understands most of what is being said to him or around him.
Amy sadly divorced from her husband, due to the strains put on their marriage in raising child with autism, and so has raised her son as a single mother since he was 3 years old.
We asked Amy what her motivation was for setting up the website and Facebook group. She told us:
“I was motivated to start this project as his birthday grew closer and the same thoughts entered my mind as they do every year. Will my son ever have a single friend to invite to his birthday? “
Amy has not as yet been able to have a single child in attendance for a birthday party for Nicholas and she tells that when the story about Colin in Michigan started going around that she had already been thinking about her son’s upcoming birthday and this inspired her to start the site. Autism Daily Newscast covered the story about Colin which you can read here.
Amy continues to share that she set up the website:
“to help not only Nicholas but all the other kids out there in my son’s position. I thought if there could be such an outpouring for one boy in Michigan then surely the public would embrace such a cause.”
You can visit the website here and the Facebook page here