My name is Christine from Jordan’s Grab ‘n Go and I am fundraising to help the Kiwanis Club finish the special needs park in Dyersburg.

As many of you know, we started Jordan’s

Grab ‘n Go so that my beautiful daughter,

Jordan, would have somewhere to work at.

Jordan was born with autism, which is

a developmental disorder that affects

communication and social interaction and is often accompanied by repetitive behaviors.

Autism, or autism spectrum disorder, as it is

often referred to now, affects individuals in

varying degrees of severity, from low to high

functioning and everything in between. To

complicate matters, many adolescents with

autism are often diagnosed with epilepsy.

In our case, Jordan was diagnosed with autism when she was 3 1/2 years old and she started having epileptic seizures when she was 15. The seizures added another facet to her already

complicated diagnosis, as autism truly is a

puzzle.

I cannot even begin to describe the changes

that Jordan’s autism diagnosis had on our

family. Literally every decision we make, from where we live, to when my husband would

retire, to what we eat, where we go, and who

cares for Jordan while I am working, takes

Jordan’s diagnosis and special needs into

consideration. We have to plan for tantrums,

seizures and meltdowns, which tend to present themselves at the most in opportune times.

While raising a child with autism is a huge responsibility, it also reaps huge rewards. Jordan

brings so much love and happiness into my life and I am blessed to be her mother, conservatorprotector, advocate, and self-appointed

guarantor of her happiness.

We opened the store on December 31, 2018

and in those early days, it was just my son,

Tommy and I, trying to figure out how to run a business. We learned by trial and error and

those first few months were mostly error.

While trying to decide how to staff our little

store, it dawned on us that we could provide

jobs for special needs adults and hopefully

give them job skills that they could build on to become productive members of society. We

founded our little store with the belief that every single person no matter how disabled has something to give back to society. We strive to

hire individuals with disabilities whenever

possible and work with them on an individual basis to help them hone and polish their job

skills.

After opening our store, we rocked along for a

little over a year by the time Covid struck and

presented us with a whole new set of

challenges, as our costs skyrocketed and we

dealt with supply chain issues that continue to persist into our very shaky current economic

environment, with 8% inflation and continued pressure on our bottom line. Before we even opened the store, I told my husband that it

would be a family sacrifice that would

undoubtedly delay my eventual retirement, but nevertheless, I felt compelled to do it. My son Tommy has sacrificed better paying jobs to

help us get the business going for the good of our family. I went into this business with my

eyes wide open, knowing that it would take

years before we would be able to break even. We continue to hope that we will be able to

break even at some point, but that day has not yet presented itself.

That brings us to a conversation that began

a little over a month ago that left me speechless and restored my faith in humanity. Out of the blue, Monty Coleman Montgomery from

Summit Roofing stopped by to introduce

himself. He told me about his boss who has a

son with severe autism and showed me his business card which has the autism ribbon on it. Monty told me that the good folks at Summit

Roofing had been following our story for a

while and that they appreciated all of the good that Jordan’s does for the community. Monty went on to tell me that they noticed we were in desperate need of a new roof and that Summit wanted to gift us a new roof at absolutely no

cost!!! Yes, you heard that right: Summit

Roofing had gifted Jordan’s Grab ‘n Go a roof at absolutely no cost! Summit Roofing has

completed the new roof and they did a

fantastic job. We are grateful beyond

words for their generosity.

What can you say to someone that gifts you

with a free roof????? Thank you does not

begin to express the gratitude that I feel for

Summit’s most generous offer. We are

obviously very grateful for a free roof, but

honestly, their thoughtfulness of wanting to do this grand gesture for us because they

appreciate what we do for the community has reinforced for me that we are doing the right

thing for our community and that our little business means something. That validation means more to me than a free roof or any amount of money. I believe that our community needs

businesses like Jordan’s and Summit Roofing. We are both businesses that are affected

by autism because someone we love has

autism. Likewise, our businesses share a

common goal of bringing awareness,

compassion and understanding to individuals

affected with a disability.

I am a big believer in fate and paying it

forward. A few weeks ago, my friend, Vanedda Webb, asked me to speak at the Kiwanis

weekly meeting, which turned out to be a

serendipitous event that plays into this story.

At the meeting, I told the origin story of

Jordan’s. I learned that the the Kiwanis Club

has been working on putting together a special needs park at Kiwanis Park on Tickle Street in Dyersburg. After speaking with Paul Newbill, who has been spearheading the park project

for Kiwanis and Scott Ball with the City of

Dyersburg, I leaned that the City and the

Kiwanis Club have been working together for

several years to put together funding for the

special needs park, which to date totals

approximately $300,000. In order for the park to become a reality, Kiwanis needs another

$10,000. We want to help raise the $10,000 so that we can push this special needs park over the finish line. The park will be an asset for our community so that everyone with a disability

can have somewhere to play. Our community needs this park!

In order to kick off our fundraiser, we will be

giving away hunks of free pizza and collecting donations for the park on Saturday, June 18th,

from 12:00 noon to 2:00 P.M. All checks can

be made to the Kiwanis Club so that the

donations are tax deductible. We will have a

jjar available at the store tomorrow, as we want to collect cash donations as well. Our goal is to raise as much of the $10,000 as possible! All proceeds raised will be provided to the

Kiwanis Club in the name of Douglas Greenhaw, Jr., who is the son of one of the owners of Summit Roofing. We hope to meet Douglas one day soon and invite him to have pizza with

Jordan.

We started this Gofundme page as a way for

donors to make electronic donations for the

special needs park. 100% of the funds raised

will go to the Kiwanis for the park.