Run for Autism April 13 to support Bridgeway House

Presenter: One of Oregon’s great education success stories, Bridgeway House, didn’t even start out as a school. Founder Patricia Wigney:

Patricia Wigney: We started in 2003 so we have been around and we didn’t start off as a school. We started off as a bunch of parents that did home therapy services.

[00:00:19] Presenter: When her daughter was diagnosed with autism, Patricia learned there were very few existing services.

[00:00:25] Patricia Wigney: My daughter was a little over two when she got diagnosed, and they basically told me she would maybe be institutionalized. And, you know, they’re giving you the worst-case scenario. That’s normal. And she may never speak, 68 borderline mental ability, IQwise. And we’re all like, ‘No, man, she can point to every bone in the human body.’ She could speak, but she couldn’t have conversations. So she memorized everything. She memorized whole books—Charlotte’s Web—she knew the whole book by heart, photographic memory.

[00:00:57] Presenter: Patricia opened up her home, and the success stories soon began to multiply.

[00:01:02] Patricia Wigney: We started when there was nothing. There wasn’t any services. There was no ABA (applied behavior analysis) clinics. There was no best practice therapies.

[00:01:09] It started in my living room. I worked at a medical clinic and they offered me to come back and I turned it down and stopped at David Atkin’s (law) office and said, ‘I need to start a nonprofit.’ We were just going to be medical therapies, you know, food, diet, very alternative.

[00:01:29] And Dr. Ronda Roberts would send everybody to my home—she’s a developmental specialist in Eugene, a pediatric development specialist—to see what a home program was like. And by the time I had about 35 parents, it was too much in my home. So I called a meeting and I said, ‘Let’s do this.’

[00:01:49] There was six or seven parents and we had a board, five women, two men, if I recall, so yeah. And the men said, ‘We need half a million dollars to start.’ And the women said, ‘No, we’re starting now, we’re doing a garage sale.’ And that’s what we did. We started on $2,000 because we wanted services right away.

[00:02:08] So it’s never been completely sustainable, but it’s grown from a garage sale to serving hundreds of families and children. We grew out of a home program and that’s how the school grew.

[00:02:21] Presenter: Hearing of their success, school districts soon began contacting them.

[00:02:26] Patricia Wigney: The school came out in 2009 from the need of the districts. So they literally reached out to us because we were doing one-on-one therapies. Fern Ridge School District was the first one that reached out to us. A first-grader needed a separate space. He was a big guy, very sweet, but physical, and they couldn’t handle him. And they said, ‘Can you help?’ And we said, ‘Sure, it’s what we do.’ And he stayed with us till he was 21 and he was our first student.

[00:02:55] And then it just went from there. And then of course they said, ‘Hey, can you become part of ODE (Oregon Department of Education)?’ And I would say, ‘Sure.’ And then, ‘Can you do this? Can you do that?’ And it grew to what we are now, with 90 students or so. And it grew from one district to 17 school districts.

[00:03:16] Presenter: The number of sites, students, and families has continued to grow over the years. Bridgeway parent Mini Kathuria:

[00:03:23] Mini Kathuria: We’ve got two locations, one’s on the 15th Street downtown, and there’s one on Upper Camp Creek. And we have about 90 children that the school serves, 90 families. And there are a lot of kids on the wait list that are wanting to get in.

[00:03:38] Presenter: Here’s Heather, a Bridgeway House parent.

[00:03:41] Heather: Bridgeway House has been life-changing for my daughter. The teachers and the staff approach their work with true dedication to these kids, creating a welcoming space for them to achieve their goals as individuals. Avery has made friends who appreciate her just as she is. She’s earned her GED, she volunteers in the community, and next she’s taking steps toward getting her first job.

[00:04:05] None of this would have come easily, if at all, without the support of Bridgeway House. Most importantly, Bridgeway is a place where my daughter feels accepted and appreciated, and that alone has really transformed how Avery sees herself and the possibilities for her future. And I can never fully express my gratitude to Patricia Wigney and all the wonderful teachers at this school.

[00:04:32] I mean, Patricia is an amazing human. She is truly one of the most generous people I’ve ever met and she’s given our family so much love and attention and care. She’s just fantastic. And all of that love she pours into her school and you can see it.

[00:04:47] You can see it in the kids. You can see it in the people who work there. Teaching is not easy. And she has a lot of teachers have been there for a long time. She’s just really created a tremendous community. It’s incredible.

[00:05:02] Presenter: Avery is graduating this year.

[00:05:04] Avery: Well, the staff there, they just, they treat you like an individual and not just like a lump of child. It’s always really supportive. They, like, treat your goals seriously, they truly just believe in you as a person and know you can do great things, when in a lot of other places, no one sees that.

[00:05:26] And sometimes in a lot of those schools, they might treat you all like babies, but they don’t here. They treat you like an individual who has goals, ambitions and is going to find their place in the world. And they help you do that. 

[00:05:41] I’m trying to get my driver’s license. I kind of always have to rely on my parents to be able to go anywhere. I want to be able to get my license so I’m not stuck in this tiny town doing nothing, drive myself to go for a hike, that sort of thing.

[00:05:55] So they’ve been helping me go through the DMV manual and answer some questions and things like that.

[00:06:03] One of my older goals that I actually managed to pass was to get my GED diploma. They had helped me with math questions and they even were able to take part of their day out to take the bus to LCC so I could do prep classes.

[00:06:19] Presenter: Avery is just one of the many students to succeed at Bridgeway House. Patricia Wigney:

[00:06:25] Patricia Wigney: We have students that have come through Bridgeway, different programs, that are in the (U.S.) Marines. We have one that’s a policeman. Grocery stores: I know Market of Choice is really good about hiring a lot of our kids to be grocery baggers. Albertsons is great at that too. They hire a lot of people with special needs.

[00:06:45] It’s really important to know that because it’s a developmental delay, they will improve, unlike CP (cerebral palsy) or other disabilities where it is what it is, this is not. They can get better and better with the right support and therapies.

[00:07:00] Some of these students you may think cognitively don’t get it. They do, once they do, and they will always be there on time and be there for work. And they’re going to be part of our community.

[00:07:14] As long as they’re happy and they have self-esteem, that’s what we care about. And I think that’s also really important, that the work we do isn’t just about students with autism. It’s about part of the community and as they grow, keeping them off the streets, giving them meaningful lives.

[00:07:31] Presenter: Bridgeway has been struggling since the pandemic and needs your help. Patricia Wigney:

[00:07:37] Patricia Wigney: We have times when we’re doing great and sustainable, but, you know, the pandemic didn’t help. And the really important piece of the pandemic is we kept kids home for 18 months, kids with special needs, away from peers and in-person learning that, especially the early intervention kids, that was hard. And when they came back to be in person, it was like starting over. There was more aggressions, more behaviors, more need, and we got overloaded and really full.

[00:08:13] Presenter: A state law also added to the school’s financial burden. Patricia Wigney:

[00:08:18] Patricia Wigney: We used to be only a four-day school day six hours, because we find that our children do better with less demands. But the SB 819 bill passed that every student with special needs is entitled to a full day. And that means that I had to increase our staff’s hours 40 hours a month. You take 100 staff, 40 hours a month, you know, and it’s not in the budget. 

[00:08:50] I would say at least 80% of those children can do a full day, but there’s those that can’t, because they just can’t.

[00:08:59] The kids that can do the full days deserve those days. We’ll get a full funding for that, but we don’t for the half-days. And so our goal is to get those children up to step-up plans and get those behaviors regulated so we can take them. It does obviously hurt our funding because we only get half. We take a lot of students and we only get half.

[00:09:22] So, it’s kind of a domino effect from the pandemic of everything that’s happened and just more and more billed and getting behind.

[00:09:29] So you can see why as a nonprofit we’re declining. And I’m fortunate that our staff love the work. They love the students. So the staff themselves are incredible and they don’t get enough credit because they take on this work. We’ve had staff for 15, 20 years stay in this crazy nonprofit that some crazy mom started.

[00:09:54] We serve kids up to 21. So we have some older kids in that transitional period, 18 to 21. We get them out in the community. They get jobs and it’s a crucial program. Each classroom is less than 10 students to keep it small and so they feel safe. And I tell my staff if the students have self-esteem and they feel valued and love themselves, we’ve done our job.

[00:10:21] When parents come to us, they feel like they don’t belong anywhere. And with Bridgeway, we’re family and they all belong and that’s important to this community.

[00:10:31] Presenter:  The community is invited to join a rally for Bridgeway House April 13, after the Run for Autism at Alton Baker Park.

[00:10:57] You can support Bridgeway House through Paypal at their website, BridgewayHouse.org, mail checks to PO Box 10639, Eugene 97401, or call (541) 345-0805 to donate over the phone.

Image courtesy Bridgeway House.