Happy

It’s hard to ignore the endless fighting in Washington, or the reports of lead contamination in our drinking water, of course, there’s the opiate crisis, and did I mention Global Climate change? With 24 x 7 news, there’s an endless whine of the same bad news repeated over and over again, across reporters, across news shows, and then again across late-night entertainment and comedy shows.  It gets to be a bit tiring after a while!

I was commiserating about the quality of the news with a friend of mine in Boston. He agreed that today’s news depends too much on bad and “surprise” news.  You know the type, “Worst hurricane in history headed your way… death, doom, and destruction inevitable… the only chance for survival is… in our next segment, right after these commercial announcements.” Anyway, I’ll let Tom tell you in his own words, about a story with a happy ending that you can participate in!

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Hi, This is Tom VanAntwerp from Nicky’s Gardens of Hope. Back in the day while studying journalism, I noticed the number of bad-news stories far outweighed the number of good-news stories. Can I have a moment of your time? I have a newsworthy story for you that has both of them.

First the bad news. Since the 1980’s there has been a constant increase in the number of occurrences of Autism and Intellectual Developmental Disabilities (IDD). Services are provided for these kids when they are in school, however, when an Autistic /IDD child becomes an adult, they lose all of their “childhood” services which is referred to as going over “The Cliff” . This steady and increasing flow has created a population of Adults with Autism and IDD (AA&IDD) that grows by 100,000 new members annually (50,000 ASD – 50,000 all other IDD).

Somehow we didn’t see this coming. Now there is a shortage of services and housing solutions suitable for these adults whose parent(s) are aging along with them. AA&IDD can need significant care and permanent homes often have a waiting list of 15 years or more. Even now, with a much smaller number of adult service providers post “Cliff”, AA&IDD must fight for a place and pay a premium fee if they can afford it.

While just a few decades ago IDD children rarely lived to become adults, today IDD adults live well into their 50s and 60s. Services simply have not caught up to the huge and rapidly growing needs. There is an enormous need for services and housing and this is why we need to build Nicky’s Gardens of Hope and many more like it. It will provide a permanent housing solution with opportunities for AA&IDD employment and the best possible services available today.

Nicky’s Gardens of Hope can do this because it removes the problem of relying on the government to respond to this crisis, shifting that burden to free-market, social-impact interests (funds managed by do-gooders doing well). Impact Investment will fund this charity as an investment (through its’ B Corporation) and see a return on their investment. This, in turn, makes Nicky’s Gardens of Hope sustainable and therefore scalable enough to meet the needs of this coming crisis. The good news is that we have found a solution for this crisis and now we just need to build awareness so we can break ground and be underway.

Nicky’s Gardens of Hope is raising money for a residence for 150 autistic and intellectually disabled adults in Hudson Valley New York. But it’s a lot more than that. It’s the idea of an open village that provides holistic services for residents, their families, and the community… businesses, work opportunities, vacation and recreation services, and education.

It has launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance the first stage of this program. While government funding is always elusive, Impact Investors have been attracted to its financial model, the Balanced Risk Revenue Model (BRRM). This revolutionary financing model provides perpetual revenue, a means for direct investment, and the revenue needed to repay Investors at market rates.

The Crowd funder is open, and Nicky’s Gardens is looking for individual, corporate and foundation support. We want to invite everyone to join our movement to see that everyone can live a meaningful and dignified life! Why don’t you spread a little good news yourself? Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and your other social media to tell a few friends about this project! If you really want to spread good news, you can tell your friends how you volunteered a little time to make the world just a little bit better!