By Tammie Mulvey
Houlton Rotarian
HOULTON — Most people know that autism is rapidly on the rise. Almost everyone knows someone who has an autistic child or an adult. Just five years ago the statistic was 1 in 110 children were on the Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Rotarian Jacquie Morse spoke on the topic during a recent meeting.
Contributed photo/Michael Clark
GUEST SPEAKER — Jacquie Morse, left, was a recent speaker at the Houlton Rotary Club. Morse spoke on the subject of autism. With Morse is Lori Weston, Rotary president.
But today that number has jumped to 1 in 68 children. Of those students with ASD only 56 percent will graduate from high school. Currently we have 1 to 1.5 million Americans living with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The cost of autism over the lifespan is 3.2 million dollars per person with 60 percent of the cost in adult care alone.
In 10 years time it is projected that autism will cost our nation $200 – $300 billion a year. According to a current Population Survey from December 2010 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was at 14 percent, compared with 9 percent for people without a disability. Additionally, during the same period, only 21 percent of all adults with disabilities participated in the labor force as compared with 69 percent of the non-disabled population
That is where we hope to change lives. Starting May 31 of 2014 Autism Love and Bee Morse Farm presented “Farming 2 Shine,” an up and coming farm where handicap individuals come to learn how to farm. Our goals are to provide an education into a industry that the world relies on and to teach them a vocation that they can depend on for a livelihood.
We want to teach each of our Handi-Farmers that they can depend on themselves and give them the confidence, knowledge and a sense of contributing to their communities. While we have a structured curriculum planned out, everything is taught in a fun, hands on way. Each day we meet, brings a new lesson and activity like: learning about our tools and how to use them safely; learning how worms help our garden by releasing worms into the garden and studying the benefits they provide; learning to eat from our garden and fun, healthy recipes; and learning how bees help our garden and across pollination.
