Gardens nonprofit helps children with special needs 'dream bigger'

Palm Beach Post - 12/5/2019

PALM BEACH GARDENS - Randy and Chrissy Maale closed one chapter of their lives the day before Thanksgiving, and wasted little time in starting a new one.

The Palm Beach Gardens couple, who ran the Triumph Kids sensory gym and therapy center in the Promenade Plaza shopping center for three years, have started a nonprofit to provide access to premier services for children with autism and related special needs.

The Dream Bigger Children's Foundation offers scholarships and provides therapy funding, family support and access to community integration programs throughout Palm Beach County.

Its mission is to offer and encourage means and methods that allow children with autism and related special needs to thrive in academic, social, therapeutic, community-based and family-oriented environments, said Randy Maale, a father of 8-year-old twin boys with autism.

"It's so difficult for a child with special needs to be in a traditional school setting, even if it's in an ESE classroom," Maale said. "They need a good deal of therapy, and they don't get it in the school system at any level that's really going to create an actual change.

"We're trying to help families that have specific needs that they couldn't get anywhere else, and they couldn't afford."

When fully funded, the Dream Bigger Children's Foundation will provide scholarship money for children to enroll in alternative school programs, participate in physical, occupational, speech and applied-behavior analysis therapies and attend social and behavioral programs.

It also will create a community integration program, and present autism sensitivity training for first responders.

Because the foundation is so new, it has no office space or operational staff other than Maale, who serves as its executive director.

But Maale, who is working on meeting fundraising goals, is getting closer to securing space for the nonprofit, most likely at a church.

"A church seems to be the most logical fit, just because it's not-for-profit," he said. "It's kind of a natural marriage that works out for everybody."

Once space is secured, Maale will move forward with plans to launch an enrichment program for children that will be run entirely through the foundation.

At the start, four children will receive scholarship money to participate in the enrichment program, which will be designed to meet their academic, social and therapeutic needs, Maale said.

"It's going to be run by the foundation and 'scholarshipped' by the foundation," Maale said. "The goal is to get these kids into a hybrid program."

Maale hopes that Dream Bigger Children's Foundation will make as big an impact on children with special needs as Triumph Kids did.

The 5,000-square-foot facility, which closed Nov. 27, contained an open play gym in addition to classrooms for therapy, social skills and enrichment programs.

Kids came from all over Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast to receive services there, Maale said.

"It was a huge draw for us," Maale said. "It kind of opened our eyes to the needs that are out there."

For information on Dream Bigger Children's Foundation or to donate, visit www.dreambiggercf.org or contact info@dreambiggercf.org.

jwagner@pbpost.com

@JRWagner5

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