We celebrated our 17th Annual Appreciation and Angel Award Dinner! We had the best time with outstanding performances and fantastic raffle prizes for all our teachers and therapists! What an awesome way to celebrate our beloved village!
This year, the NAA-NT would like to recognize Lindsey Bianchin as our Teacher Angel. Lindsey has a passion and a huge heart for helping her students learn and progress. She goes above and beyond to create an inclusive environment in her classroom, bringing in general education students to help, model, and challenge her students in communication and finding opportunities for her students to participate in community activities.
The NAA-NT also recognized James Vilade, Founder of Keeper of The Game, as our Community Angel. Not only has James created an incredible community for special needs teens and adults to experience baseball, but at the event, he made a generous donation to the NAA-NT, the same amount of $ he was able to start his non-profit with. Thank you, James and the Keeper of the Games community, for making a difference in our family’s lives. A true inspiration to us all!
https://www.keeperofthegame.org/
Our first performer from the Appreciation Dinner is Jonathan! He is a performer at heart and enjoys putting on shows for his family and his friends at ABA. Jonathan Hay performed at the All Abilities Expo with StarCatchers and a local community event in McKinney with Community Connections.
Our second performance of the evening is Shawn Piper! Shawn has always been drawn to music. He sings in perfect pitch and loves playing the drums. Shawn has performed at various events, including singing the national anthem for the Special Olympics, the Texas Legends, and the Allen Americans. Here he is singing “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane.
Our final performance of the evening was by Clayton Iburg! He loves music and sports. He has been taking music lessons with Sound Starts Music for almost a decade and loves singing and playing piano and guitar. He is an athlete with the Miracle League of Frisco, playing a variety of sports, and volunteers with them. He also helps out other special needs kids with the Kiwanis Halo league in McKinney on Wednesday evenings. He loves to help others and hopes to work within the special needs community after high school.
Thank you to everyone who attended the event!