Stories of Potential

Ask Carl Price about his childhood, and you can't help but feel moved by the struggles he faced as a young boy 25 years ago. With a father in jail and a mother struggling with addiction, Carl wasn't sure when his next meal would come, let alone his next medical checkup. So when Carl developed a tumor on the left side of his neck, it was left untreated for over a year.

Alexandra Carter doesn't lack for social skills. In fact, unlike many teenagers with Down syndrome who may struggle to find their places among social groups and peers, Alexandra is outgoing and vivacious.

Colbie Bratlie wants to be a world champion. And the odds are good that she will be because she competes in wheelchair basketball, sled hockey, track, field, archery, table tennis, and swimming. The athletic 14- year-old already seems Herculean for her stamina and determination, but when you add in that she has cerebral palsy, it truly does make her accomplishments seem superhuman.

A Day at the Aquarium

"Mom, Lauren pinched me," Justin calls back to his mother. He and his little sister, Lauren, are walking arm in arm through Baltimore's Inner Harbor on their way to the National Aquarium. Just over a year ago, this trip might not have been possible. Justin has autism, and he had a hard time doing anything outside of his established routine.

Given a choice, Kevin Sargeant says he could do without all of the independence and opportunities that adulthood promises. But adulthood, it seems, is coming for him nonetheless.

From the beginning, and without hesitation, Katherine Wilkerson always offered her unwavering support of anything her son Taylor wanted to do. The thing is, though, until the age of 9, there was never much of anything the boy was too interested in trying.

Laying in a hospital bed on a Sunday night, Morgan Dunnigan believed her parents and physician when they said she would wake up the next morning for a surgery that promised to make the pain in her neck disappear, make the tumor hurting her spine go away, make everything better.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

It was a perfect day at the beach. The sun was shining, and the water was just right. Ben and his friends splashed in the waves and built sand castles, while his mom Joanne and the other parents chatted under the umbrellas, keeping a watchful eye on the children. But as the day came to a close, everyone headed back to the house, just a few blocks away.

Weekday mornings are always a struggle in the Smith household. Like most preteens, Joseph likes to sleep. The 12-year-old is slow to start and has trouble shifting gears -especially before breakfast. Constant prompting from his mom Kathleen keeps him on track, and eventually, he gets himself bathed, dressed, fed, and out the door to school.

It was spring of 2007, and the town of Hastings, Nebraska, was looking forward to summer. Memorial Day weekend had come and gone, and Kirk and Jami Ortegren had just watched their son Jack crawl for the first time.