Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Keeney.
Susan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was a special education teacher for 22 years in the public-school system. I began noticing a pattern in the future of my students. At age 22 when school services end majority of my students ended up doing nothing, no purposeful adult outcomes. 22 is usually a great time of life to explore opportunities, go on adventures, and build your future. My students with disabilities were experiencing the exact opposite, they lost connections with friends, lacked purpose and had very limited opportunities. Something needed to change.
My fellow special educators and kindred spirits, Lauren Marks and Renee Smith and I began to explore why this was happening. We concluded one of the major problems was that there were just not enough opportunities for supports for adults with disabilities once they leave school. We began to dream of developing a program that could not only provide needed support to families but also provide an avenue for adults with disabilities to give back to their community. Before we knew it, God began to open doors and future goals and dreams turned into a present reality, The Exceptional Foundation of Atlanta. In 2018, the three of us all took a huge leap of faith and left our full time teaching careers to launch The Exceptional Foundation of Atlanta, a day program for adults with disabilities.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The challenges have been many, but the rewards are so worth it! The three of us have extensive experience in working with people with disabilities. We are a new, small organization and have had to become a “jack of all trades” and performing tasks outside of our specialized training and skill sets. Also, we quickly learned many new things about the non-profit world. We have been so incredibly fortunate that whenever a need has come up God has provided just the right person to help us navigate our way through it. We have been richly blessed by the relationships we have developed along this journey. We have learned so much!
Please tell us about the organization.
At age of 22, school ends for students with disabilities. The Exceptional Foundation of Atlanta hopes to be the answer for many families in Metro Atlanta. The Exceptional Foundation of Atlanta is a day program that provides purposeful activities for adults with disabilities to increase social interactions, community involvement and healthy lifestyles. We all need help from others to get through the day and our participants are no different. We provide supports to individuals with a wide range of disabilities such as autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability and traumatic brain injury just to name a few. We believe in working collectively as a team to help everyone have an exceptional day. Grace Church in Snellville has gifted EFATL with use of their space to meet Mondays- Thursdays. Our activities are different every day and driven by our participants interests. Our program incorporates our four core values:
*Healthy Lifestyles- We partner with local gyms and fitness experts to increase physical activity. We also explore wise food choices through culinary team challenges and cooking projects. This is also a great way to improve daily living skills.
*Interaction- Time spent with friends is invaluable. EFATL participants have a wide range of interests, those interests drive our plans. Participants have planned experiences as unique as a trip to a local alpaca farm and as exciting as attending an Atlanta Braves game and as ordinary as drinks with friends at Starbucks. Our next adventure awaits…
*Purpose- We assist participants in giving back to their community through a variety of volunteer activities such as supporting senior citizens, making meals for foster families, or working at food pantries and much more.
*Awareness- It is important for all of us to know our strengths and to know when we need to ask for help. We want all of our participants to be strong self-advocates and know how to get the support needed with dignity and respect.
I believe our participant driven programming makes EFATL exceptional. Our participants are the designers of what we do. They have dreams and our staff assists them in making them a reality and we do this at an affordable cost to families. We are a 501c3 and raise funds from generous supporters to subsidize our operating costs to keep fees to families affordable. We want families to know they are not alone. We are family!
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Trust God.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.efatl.org
- Phone: 770-504-6053
- Email: info@efatl.org
- Instagram: exceptionalfoundationatl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/efatl2017
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