Driven by love and hope, these five local mothers were determined to make a difference.
Written by Alison Johnson
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Laura Lenz and Nosuk Kim
Founded The Peninsula School for Autism
Newport News, Va.
[dropcap]Time was running out. Laura Lenz and Nosuk Kim could feel it more each day, especially once their autistic sons Chad and Ben turned into teenagers. With the public school system unable to offer the one-on-one attention their boys needed to build language, self-care and social skills, the Newport News mothers began to panic.[/dropcap]
Lenz and Kim pictured Chad, 15, and Ben, 18, becoming such burdens that their two siblings apiece might come to resent them rather than love them unconditionally. “I felt terribly guilty, like I was letting them all down,” Kim says.
So Lenz, a stay-at-home mother, and Kim, a lawyer, decided to make a drastic move: they founded a school.
The Peninsula School for Autism in Newport News, which opened in 2011, currently serves 12 students ages 6 to 18 and has a waiting list of 10 more. In classrooms, a computer lab and fitness area, kids receive private instruction using the Applied Behavioral Analysis method, a therapy that teaches skills and behaviors based on a reward system.
Over the past four years, Kim and Lenz have toured schools for autistic children in Richmond, Suffolk and Charlottesville, hired an executive director to set up the program, found space to rent from the Boys & Girls Club of the Virginia Peninsula, filed paperwork to become a nonprofit, put together numerous fundraisers and presided over two physical expansions. “It’s been a huge learning curve, but seeing how we’re reaching these kids makes it so worthwhile,” says Lenz. “There’s so much need.”
Chad and Ben have thrived at their new school. Chad, completely non-verbal and prone to head-banging tantrums as a child, has turned into a far happier chatterbox. Ben’s problem behaviors, which include arm flapping and spontaneous noises, also have dramatically improved, and he’s mastering “normal” teenage skills such as handling a wallet and money.
Lenz, 45, and Kim, 52, only wish they’d acted sooner. Says Kim: “This just goes to show you what desperate mothers can do.”
For more information, visit www.peninsulaschoolforautism.com or call (757) 223-0558
Jennifer Clarke
Organized a 5K run to fund medical research
Poquoson, Va.
[dropcap]In 2003, the first year Jennifer Clarke organized a 5K run to fund research into her daughter’s rare and incurable genetic disorder, little Mackenzie would scamper across the finish line. That’s a bittersweet memory now: at almost 13, Mackenzie can no longer walk, talk or sit up on her own.[/dropcap] The race that the Clarke family started from scratch and hosted for eight years has raised more than $100,000 for research and has become a popular annual event in Poquoson, although the Kiwanis Club has taken over.
Clarke remains passionate about educating people on Mackenzie’s illness, known as mucopolysaccharide, or MPS III disease, which causes abnormal accumulation of sugar molecules in organs and tissues. She’s active in the national MPS Society and plans a community event each May, such as a balloon release or tree planting in partnership with Poquoson schools, where Mackenzie is a fifth-grader.
“There will be a cure one day, and our community will have been part of that,” says Clarke, 44. “It’s tough to realize that it won’t help Mackenzie, but we’re still very proud. These rare diseases need funding and attention.”
Mackenzie was diagnosed with MPS III at age 2 after her pediatrician discovered an enlarged liver. Brain damage has quieted a formerly giggly girl who loved people, horseback riding, music and time outdoors. Mackenzie now needs a feeding tube and has a seizure disorder. “Everything sort of slips away,” says Clarke, a high school chemistry teacher. “One day I realized I hadn’t heard her say ‘Mama’ for a while—and that I would never hear it again.”
The family, including siblings Zach, 15, and Ella, 6, isn’t sure how much longer Mackenzie will survive. “We’re firm believers in the quality of her life,” Clarke says. “We’ve given her lots of experiences and fun, and she has touched a lot of people and always will. When it’s time, we’ll let her go.”
For more information, visit www.mpssociety.org or call 877-677 -1001. To learn about the 5K event, visit www.poquosonkiwanis.org or call (757) 870-5113.
Janice Herrity
Continues her daughter’s fight against childhood cancer
York County, Va.
[dropcap]In the last weeks of Meaghan Herrity’s life, when a tumor ran all the way along the length of her spinal cord and left her paralyzed, she chose to keep up with her schoolwork. The 16-year-old took her state standardized tests while on a morphine pump.[/dropcap]
Meaghan never wanted her mother, Janice Herrity, to give up the fight either. Before Meaghan died in 2008, the York County teenager asked Herrity to finish the book they’d planned to write together about her two-year battle with brain cancer, as well as to keep supporting childhood cancer organizations.
“Meaghan was determined to be more than a blurb in a medical journal,” Herrity says. “She wanted to show people that there is hope even in the darkest of situations.”
Herrity, 56, published that book—“Meaghan’s Story: More than Just a Statistic”—in 2010 and launched the Meaghan C. Herrity Charitable Foundation, an extension of a club called Students for the Cure that Meaghan started at Grafton High School. Over the past five years, the foundation has directed nearly $60,000 to nonprofits for research, education and family support. The family also awards an annual scholarship to a Grafton senior who displays compassion and advocacy.
Meaghan’s journey, which began with a sore neck and tingling legs, included having to re-learn basic tasks such as sitting up and holding up her head. A former field hockey and track athlete, she moved from understandable hysteria at her diagnosis to an almost eerie calm that inspired loved ones. Her two older brothers have promised to run the charitable foundation in the future, and several friends have chosen medical careers to continue Meaghan’s focus on giving back to others.
“When you lose a child, you wonder if people are going to remember them,” Herrity says. “What I’ve learned is that the way my daughter handled herself created this amazing ripple effect. All I’m doing is carrying on what she started.”
For more information, visit www.meaghancherritycharitablefoundation.org or call (757) 223-1359.
Dr. Lucy Gibney
Founded Dr. Lucy’s LLC.
Norfolk, Va.
[dropcap]After finally finding a cookie that her son could eat without facing life-threatening complications, Lucy Gibney took a bite out of curiosity.[/dropcap]
It tasted so awful that when Colin, then 1, sweetly offered her another bite, Gibney had to turn him down. She knew his friends would do the same someday, probably less politely, and she hated the thought of Colin – and other kids with severe allergies – always eating alone.
So Gibney left an eight-year career as an emergency room doctor to launch her own line of better-tasting, attractively packaged cookies for people with food allergies. Early recipe experiments in her kitchen have evolved into Dr. Lucy’s LLC, a Norfolk-based company that sends sweets to some 7,000 retail locations worldwide, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East.
“We never wanted to just be a small, local bakery, because we couldn’t stand the thought of someone who needed these products not having access to them,” says Gibney, 50, the company’s president and chief executive officer.
Colin, now 9, has a long list of allergies that includes dairy, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. Gibney and her husband Paul had their only child tested when he began gasping and vomiting after taking a few sips of formula as a 4-month-old baby.
Dr. Lucy’s offers brownie cakes and seven flavors of cookies, along with seasonal specials such as fall’s pumpkin patch and maple crunch cookies. All are vegan, gluten-free, without trans fats and baked with strict quality controls. Sales have at least doubled every year; the business now has 50 employees and a 15,000-square-foot headquarters. One of Gibney’s future dreams is to create a line of crackers.
Beyond seeing Colin and his friends happily snacking on Dr. Lucy’s treats, Gibney’s biggest reward is getting letters from children who can share their treats with loved ones who may not even have allergies. “Eating is very communal,” Gibney says. “These kids should feel like they’re having the same experiences as everyone else.”
For more information, visit www.drlucys.com or call (757) 233-9495. Products are sold locally at Harris Teeter, Whole Foods and independent natural food stores; online orders are available through Amazon.