Brown Family Says Thank You All
Maureen Rossi
Two weeks back we brought you a story about Patrick Brown. A Kings Park seven year old boy with autism and is non-verbal. We asked our amazing readers to take the time to vote for Patrick, so he could win a Buddy Bike, an inline tandem bicycle designed specifically for special needs individuals. Winning this bike would allow Patrick an experience most of us take for granted…the experience of riding a bike. Smithtown Today is overjoyed to announce that Patrick will experience the wind on his face and all the joys of bike riding like every other child. With over 11,000 votes, Patrick Brown won his Buddy Bike
Corinne Brown, Patrick’s mother, wept tears of joy, as did this seasoned reporter, over the good news. Last year the Brown’s entered the contest ran by The Great Bike Give Away, but didn’t win. Buddy Bikes are made for children with special needs and are very expensive. The Great Bike Giveaway is a collaboration effort by the Friendship Circle, Freedom Concepts, Rifton, Ambucs, Triaid, Flaghouse, Mobo Cruisers and Strider Bikes who partner together to give a free adaptive buddy bike away to whomever wins the most votes.
A member of Autism Speaks saw the Smithtown Today article on Patrick Brown and circulated it throughout their large database of emails/members. Patrick stole the show with an enormous amount of votes. “I am so overwhelmed with gratitude after reading all of the congratulatory posts on Facebook, I am not sure how to begin to thank everyone for all their time and effort that was put into helping us win Patrick a Buddy Bike,” said his mother Corrine. She says having a non-verbal child, a child with a disability can be very isolating at times. “These past few weeks has made us feel so loved and it has been so wonderful to see all of the support that was shown to my family,” she continued.
For the last seven weeks Corrine has been in Boston with Patrick where he took part in a research study that was testing two different speech interventions on non-verbal children with Autism to see if either could have an effect on speech. “The first two weeks we were here I did think I saw a change in the way Patrick tried to make sounds and seemed like he was putting more effort into his words,” she explained. She says unfortunately that’s where it stopped, he made no further progress. However, his mother said she is nowhere near ready to quit helping Patrick. She remains hopeful that Patrick will speak one day. In the meantime the excitement of the Buddy Bike has the whole family over the moon. She can’t wait for the bike to be delivered. The Brown family is very excited and very grateful.
To every single Smithtown Today reader and the members of Autism Speaks who took the time to vote, we THANK YOU for giving Patrick and the whole Brown family a sense of hope, support and happiness that makes us proud to be a part of this great community. – The Smithtown Today Team