I wanted to describe a profoundly moving experience that I had at the park. Below are pictures of Joe. Joe is a fifth Grader at Washington Irving Elementary school in Tarrytown. Joe is autistic and completely non-verbal. I had the honor of climbing with him on Tuesday. At first, I was moving Joe’s hands and feet to where they needed to be each step of the way. Little by little, Joe began to anticipate where I was going to move his hands and feet and beat me to it. After a while Joe was moving by himself. After I would showed him what was required of him for each element, he would progress across on his own. While we were clipping and unclipping him, after a while, he began trying to help us. From what I am told be his teachers, Joe doesn’t smile a lot and rarely makes eye contact. There were four times during our climb that Joe stopped, looked me in the eye, and rubbed my arm. He also smiled and giggled several times. I am not embarrassed to say that I had tears in my eyes a few times during this amazing adventures.

Joe is Boundless!!!!!!!!!!!!