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"Adaptive Dreams" was donated to Valley View Elementary School in Newhall, California. The 8' X 30' mural was installed in the California Children's Services Therapy Unit that is housed within the school and depicts extreme adaptive sports showing how children can participate in horseback riding, snow skiing,surfing and jet skiing.

Besides creating a stimulating and beautiful enviornment with in the CCS therapy unit, the goal of this project was two fold. First, was to develop a project that would create a platform for full inclusion particiapation for the student body at Valley View. Second, was to create awarness of healthy and dynamic outdoor opportunities for youth with disabilities and their families that they could be participating in.

This project successfully obtained all the goals that Gayle Abril, the principal of Valley View, and I had discussed during our pre-production meetings. Watching the 6th grade "Peer Tutors" working with the students with special needs, interacting with them as though they were regular kids was fantastic. We witnessed the barries of communication fall as the students spent more and more time with each other. Every 6th grade class along with every special ed class participated in painting of this mural. It also created such a sense of ownership for all of the students, teachers and teachers aides who participated. The mural was painted during school hours taking seven days to paint, one day to install, and one day for touch up. The project was so large that all of the students with special needs were allowed to paint multiple times with different Peer Tutors through out the week. The fact that Gayle Abril allowed the mural to be painted during school hours allowed for the ease of participation. Doing a project like this as an after school event, makes it difficult for the special needs students to participate due to their transportation issues.

The mural created a lot of awarness about other physical activities that are available for children with special needs . We were asked daily if skiing and surfing are really possible. It was fun to pull out photographs of my own daughter Kara Lynn, and share with each person how these sports are possible. I hope that this mural will spark the imagination of all the parents, teachers and therapist who view it to seek out other adaptive possiblities.

SPECIAL THANKS

To all the students of Valley View Elementary School in Santa Clarita who participated in painting the Adaptive Dreams mural!!!

I want to give special thanks to Romona Jordan and the staff of CCS for their support during the painting of this mural. We would also like to thank GP Color for printing and providing the vinyl, Vista Paint for suppling the paint and the Randall/ McAnany Company for installing the mural.

“What a wonderful experience you gave to our students! It was a gift to watch our sixth grade students work hand over hand with our students with special needs. Your work will inspire the children for years to come in Santa Clarita who receive therapy through California Children’s Services here at Valley View.” - Gayle Abril, Principle of Valley View Elementary School

If you are interested in the adaptive sports depicted in the mural, you can contact the organizations by clicking on their logos below:

If you are interested in reading the news articles written about this project, click on the logos below for the web articles and the pdf links for the newspaper articles:

pdf file