We are teaming up with an amazing young man by the name of Jonathan VanSteenburg to see if, through our partnership, we can push each other to make our dreams a reality. He has been dreaming of opening a facility almost as long as I have- and though our reasons are different- bringing together our somewhat similar goals and expanding our ideas will hopefully bring more individuals on board who can help us to bring this facility to life.
Jonathan’s Story (updated on 9/18/2020):
My name is Jonathan VanSteenburg and I would like to take a moment to say thank you to Bj for letting me partner up with her to work on this wonderful project. Let me tell you about myself. I have Cerebral Palsy which affects all my muscles and my speech. I am wheelchair bound I graduated from Rutherford High School in 2009 and got an AA degree in computer science from Gulf Coast State College in May of 2014. I got a BS degree in computer science from Florida State University in December of 2018. During my free time, I enjoy communicating with people via Facebook, go swimming, and travel.
This facility will be for foster children with special needs and for adults with special needs whose parents are getting too old to take care of them. My goal for this facility is to provide a therapeutic and relaxing living environment where they won’t have to sit in their wheelchairs all day. Bj has already listed some of the features of this facility, but I want to elaborate on one of them. For water sports, there will be an indoor swimming pool and a therapy pool. The therapy pool will be for relaxing and soothing their tight muscles and help them sleep at night. There will also be a gymnasium where they can do activities out of their wheelchairs like swinging in a hammock swing, experience flying like superman, relax in an airbag, and much more.