Mr. Barbee,

  My name is Rey Castro and my wife's name is Jessica. We have three
children, with the middle child have been diagnosed with Autism. His
name is Matthew and he is 8 years old.
 
Matthew has been a blessing to my family from the day he was born. I
am in the Army Reserves and I was called up in 2003 to deploy overseas
when my wife was pregnant with him. Luckily I was still in the states
when he was born and got to the hospital 10 minutes before he was
delivered.

  When I came back from Iraq a year later, Matthew didn't know who I
was and didn't want to have anything to do with me. It took a while for
him to adjust to this new person in his life, but we made it through.

  Now with a second deployment under our belt, it seems like things are
always about me and the military. We have never had time to focus on
Matthew and his needs. He requires extra attention and guidance for the
Autism that he has been diagnosed with. A friend of ours posted
pictures on facebook about a cruise that she attended that focused on
helping families living with Autism. We inquired about it and got in
touch with Alan Fowler. He accepted us in his group with open arms.

 SBR has opened so many doors for our group. It is exciting how we all
rally around Dalace during the fund raisers and make these wishes come
true. Dalace is a blessing to us all, he works so hard and is so
dedicated at what he does. One can truly tell he genuinely cares for
each and every person in our group.

We look forward to each and every fundraiser, because we know that
SBR is always there helping us out. From my family to yours, thank you!!

 Rey Castro


Dalace,
 
A hardy thank you is due you for assisting in making this an experience to be remembered. Chris and I appreciate your "can do" attitude and tenacity in putting this adventure together. It was a joy to be the recipient of the kindnesses extended to us by so many strangers. By the time we were ready to come home literally thousands got to know what autism is and is not. They had the opportunity to better understand what it is not.
 
God bless,
Ellen

 I know you are a busy man and i won't take much of your time. I just wanted to thank-you on behalf of Jessica,Ashley and Myself frankly thank-you seems so inadequate for what you have done for us this has been such a gift for you see a cruise has always been on my bucket list, my bucket list works a little different than most the regular bucket list is compiled of things to do by the individual before he goes to the magic kingdom for the last time but my bucket list is compiled of things I want my children to experience with me before I pass on. I have spent every waking moment since my wife left 8 years ago planning or executing trips or new experiences for my girls to do and have spent just about every dime I make doing it. I always have wanted to take my girls to sea but have never had nor seen the possibility of having the funds to do so and through a miracle i met you at my children's magical happy place for you see we often go to Disney when the pressures of life get to tough to just have personal time to get back to what really matters in life the time we spend together growing ever stronger as a family, You see my girls are my best friends in life and I am not only there father dad and also there best friend and you have given me a great further bond in our relationship.You have given us probably the greatest gift of all and that is time our time together is so precious to us. I have always told my kids that Disney was a magical place and that day we met you proved it my daughter Jessica after we left the show said "Daddy you were right Disney is magic"this touched me so deep in my heart I was brought to tears. Please forgive me i do tend to ramble I really want to thank-you from all of us and hope that all your Skyes are blue and filled with sunshine. I will send you a complete set of photos after our cruise and hope that we may keep in touch.                                                                                                                       

Your Friends,                                                                 

     Henry,Jessica and Ashley Greenfield

All, Thank you for the opportunity for AotS to provide you all with what you all deserve.  Our hearts are once again filled with the gratitude from wonderful families, and we only wish we could do more. Alan, thank you for all that you have done to help make this happen, and for creating this amazing video for capturing the love that we all have for the great work that Dalace does to make this all a reality. Until we cruise again…..

Mike  Michael Sobbell

Dalace-Skye
Alan, Mike, Jamie, AotS, EPOLA and ALL who made the cruise possible for my family it was Heart Felt.  You have touched our family in a very special way our kid's . The work you do has reached out to lots of families , thank you for inviting us to be part of AotS cruise vacation.  We can't Thank you all enough! 
We had an amazing vacation.  

Billy, Teresa  Luke & Giselle  Wittenberg

It was a great pleasure to meet you at the Festival of the Lion King. You truly have lived up to your motto your hands have so reached out and touched my heaven sent angel she talks of nothing but "my disney cruise" she has wanted to go for as long as i remember after i showed her the web site a couple of years ago i said we would go but i did not realise how expensive it was and i had the very sad duty of telling her we could not afford it. We go to Disney every chance we get for it is our true happy place and my little girl has been through sooooo much in her young life 4 major surgerys on her hips and the latest was placing a rod up one side of her spine and down the other and attaching it to her hips for scoliosis was taking a painfull toll on her she is my hero when i start to feel sorry for myself i just look at her and her spirit and unending joy and strength and i know it will be okay even though paralized on one side and in pain quite a bit of the time she will always smile and give me a hug and when she says daddy i love you it melts my cares away. I have looked at your organizations web sites and i am very very proud to have had the chance to meet you face to face and may i say people like you are heaven sent there is no other explanation the joy i see in the childrens and the testimonials i have read renew my faith in mankind i hope to have the chance to meet you again and talk it is trully an honor to see the work you do it must be so incredibly fulfilling in closing i want to send you a trully heartfelt THANK-YOU for all you do.

 Please let me know if the picture come through ok.                                                                                                                        sincerely yours.

       Henry j      
              

Everyone,

As Dalace announced at the pre-cruise meeting last month, the next Autism project for SBR is for the Group Home associated with Avondale House.  I’m very pleased to say that I was able to secure our very first donation today in the amount of $200.  The even better news is that I was able to get a $5000 commitment from another sponsor.  Dalace has secured a $5000 matching grant, so the net effect is that we have $10,200 and we’ve just begun.

This thing that we all have participated in is growing to help others.  It’s something to be very proud of.  Those kids and young adults in the group home are very deserving of this dream vacation.  The first fundraiser will be at Avondale House on April 30th, 2011.  Please help support this project by coming to the benefit and inviting as many people as possible.  We are expecting a healthy turnout and would love for of many of you to show support for these deserving kids, the group home staff, Avondale House, SBR and the autism community.

Alan

Wow, $200 already! That is excellent, Alan. The $10,200 that you and Dalace have secured will pay for 3 Avondale families of 3 and then some!
These two huge donations are a testament that Skyeward Bound and AoS are a prime match for reaching out to Autism families like us. The McKinney Family proudly supports The Avondale AoS project with our presence on April 30th.

Count us in!
Mary McKinney

Thank u to al who had a hand in dealing with my kidoes you whereall great andv thanks for helping us go on this trip it was the first trip we hv ever took as afamily and wow itv was more then we expected. God is good to put people like dalace, jamie and mike in our path and we pray for them to hv many blesings in ur life because u blessed us more than anyone can imagine. Agqain the staff was great and we are so greatful for all u hv done for us and we hope all of u all keep in touch and pray that one day we can all come back together again. Friends hv been made and I hope that they last for a lifetime.

Thank you so much again. Love the Copeland's

I cannot thank all of you enough for allowing my son and I to be apart of your lives and vacation!  The greatest part of this cruise for me was being reunited with former families and meeting many new ones.  This cruise will always rank high in my list of favorite cruises!  Hugs to all until we see each other again!!!

Jamie Grover
Director of Group Development

Skyeward Bound Ranch is a Non-Profit, Tax Exempt 501(c)3 Charitable Organization dedicated to providing social and recreational interaction of specially challenged youth.   Your support contributes significantly to our efforts to continue building an educational and entertaining program of the highest quality and national distinction with established and successful youth camps around the state of Texas. You are also serving as a standard of committed civic responsibility inspiring others to support important causes as well.

Skyeward Bound Ranch also has a Dollar for Dollar matching program.  Upon request, for every dollar donated, Skyeward Bound Ranch will match that amount with gift certificates and/or merchandise which have been donated to the fundraiser for the sole purpose of raising funds.