Hunters FFA project

My name is Carrie Bedford, my son Hunter Bedford is in the FFA program. We started the program in Oct.2014. When hunter was little we noticed that he was very delayed, so we asked the doctors and they always said he will catch up. Then when he was 4 we tried pre-k that didn’t work out very well for us. They said he wasn’t ready he cried all day and disturbed the class, so we pulled him. When kindergarten rolled around the same thing. First grade he did the same thing, he cried every day. The teacher called us in for a conference and said Hunter will not calm down he cries all day and it is disturbing her class. When they go outside he just sits alone and won’t interact with others. I asked them if there was something wrong I was told he was just spoiled and is missing me. I told her that I felt it went further than that. My husband and I came to the decision that we would try homeschool, so that we did. We were stuck he was not progressing after purchasing numerous programs, still nothing. August when school started the next year we enrolled him in a different school in the same district. We had a meeting and explained our struggles and decided to repeat the first grade and they had agreed to test him. Finally it was Dec. and still no word on testing. Jan. 1st hunter took and injury and was put in a wheel chair from Jan. to May he was also put in a homebound program. The teacher that came to the house Hunter did not do well with, so they sent a new teacher who was amazing who helped us to get into Scottish Rights learning disability center. We found that Hunter is dyslexic and has severe learning disabilities. At that point we went back to the school that he started at. He was doing well for the first few months then we hit a stopping point. We set up an ard to request more testing. They came back with slow processing and ED disorder on top of the other stuff he had already been tested for. Still we were stuck, so we went to the Neurologist. He did so many test and came back that hunter is autistic. Finally an answer is all I could think. We had already known something wasn’t right, so now we could move forward in the right direction to help Hunter. Also in that time we found out he has spinal disease and was put back in PT and the wheel chair when his pain is bad. With all that, the physical therapy and social therapy, he was still not very social. He did go from no friends to 3 so that was amazing. Then we were introduced to this program. My hunter has changed so much. The boy that would never talk to people that he was not close to and would stay to himself. He would coward down and walk away, or would just act like he didn’t hear the person talking. He would never tell the wait staff at a restaurant what he wanted. He has slowly but surely opened up. He slowly started talking to the other kids at the barn when he was working with his lamb. Then he started involving himself in meetings and interactions they had with the FFA. He is now speaking in behalf of the FFA program about his animal. I look back to before Oct. and my eyes fill up with HAPPY tears, to think that he has come so far. My son who I wasn’t sure would ever interact with others is doing the thing he was so terrified of, it blows me away. I have to give all the credit to the FFA program and the teachers and students who have stood by him. This program has been the best therapy he has ever had. All the money we had spent on other therapies and all it took was a program like this and the love of an animal.        

            We are asking for donations to help sponsor his livestock project. The mini Hereford heifer is a project the will carry on for years, as a sponsor of Hunter, He will email an update every two weeks of this project as they grow together, he will keep you up to date of all his shows and send invites out for you to come and join us as we help support him.

                                         God Bless,The Bedford Family