It has been an extreme honor and pleasure joining the CAA Board almost a year ago. CAA is innovative, and I feel essential for adults with special needs. It allows them a collegiate education, expanding their minds while exploring their creativity. Every adult should have the opportunity to reach their highest potential and this is what CAA allows them to do!

This is a great place of learning, community and inclusion. From the day I stepped through the doors I knew this was an environment that fostered a culture of acceptance and the growth of individuals abilities. There is something for everyone: Dance, Health/Fitness, Theatre, Visual Arts, Music, Communications, Technology, Sports, Library. I love blending my background in Theater, Dance, and Health and Wellness with these eager college students to tell our unique story. I Love CAA... the students, the staff, and the families!

In the spring of 2012 Nathalie was attending the post senior program through the East Side Unified High School District. Here she experienced bullying and ridicule by fellow classmates. The mean comments by her peers were starting to take a toll on her self-esteem. This would all start to change in the summer of 2012 when she first enrolled in CAA.

On her first day of school Nathalie was very nervous, she didn’t know what to expect or how she would fit in. I assured her that everything would be OK, and that she would be treated like a princess. Needles to say that when DeAnna greeted Nathalie for the first time at Randol School, she introduced herself as “Princess Nathalie”. From that day on Nathalie decided she no longer needed to partake in the post senior program, as she was now a college student.

Once the post-senior program ended Nathalie dedicated her days to attending CAA full time, and she had never been happier.

Nathalie has grow and blossomed into a confidant young woman ever since she stared taking classes at CAA. Long gone are the scars left from her bullying experience, and every day she looks forward to going to school. If it was up to her she would take all the classes CAA has to offer. If you ask her what her favorite class is she will answer differently every time. This is not a result of her not knowing what to pick, but rather because every class she takes is her favorite.

In CAA she has found a community of people who lift her spirits everyday and help her to become a strong and independent woman. Nathalie has triumphed in the face of adversity, and that is largely due to the sense of empowerment she gets from her family at CAA.

As she continues this adventure called life, she knows she will always have a place were she is loved and accepted for who she is with CAA.

I've had the distinct privilege of beginning this College 9 years with the incredibly talented and magnanimous Pamela Lindsay. CAA has grown 12-fold since inception, and we now know we can take this model nationwide to be as robust in the education space as Special Olympics is in the athletic space. This is a very personal quest for me as I strive to take this model as far as Indiana and beyond, where my sister Angel, could have her authentic abilities of comedy, dance and performing cultivated & illuminated. Angel and I grew up together almost like twins, and she is so much more intelligent than I am in so many ways that matter, but because she has Down syndrome her life opportunities dramatically decreased after high school, whereas mine were just beginning. I thank the entire community for believing in this lifelong, collegiate model of higher education for special needs adults.