I'm Danielle.

I'm Matt, and we are the founders and directors of Rising Kites and Rising Kites Coffee.

And we supply bags of celebration to families who receive a diagnosis of Down syndrome.

And we also provide employment opportunities to individuals with disabilities to further our mission.

My name.

Matt.

M A T T I'm 23 now, amazing job make coffee like, hello customers I am thinking with my brain is here you go and enjoy Matt is one of my best teammates here.

He is just he's a wonderful employee.

There is no task that is too big for him or too difficult to handle.

I make coffee and sweeping and mopping clean the windows outside clean the tables, chairs.

Matt is working towards independence as a as a young adult in this world.

It's giving him an opportunity to earn money to work and then also develop that confidence that we we know he has Every person that comes in the door, Matt greets with a smile and they immediately catch on to that joy.

It's just absolutely contagious radiating from him.

people with disabilities or perceived disabilities want to work just like everybody else they have they have something to bring to the business, something to bring to the table, so to speak, whether it be their personality or their interests, their their set of job skills.

This is part of Matt's journey toward independence, toward independent learning and living.

Danielle and I go back all the way to college.

We were on the same floor and started following her journey as they entered the world of having a child with special needs, with having a child with Down's syndrome.

Danielle was the first person I kind of reached out to and saying, Hey, we actually had a baby with Down's syndrome and probably the first person that congratulated me So rising tide started in 2021.

Sammi was born in 2020, and we received an at birth diagnosis of Down syndrome for her.

And at the time, that just completely rocked our world.

the whole trajectory of what we thought her future was going to be changed.

we just really wanted to care for families entering this community who felt the way that we did when they receive a diagnosis and and to know the gift that they've been given in their child because at the time, it doesn't necessarily feel that way.

Danielle was just the first person to say, Congratulations, you are on a great and fun ride.

And yes, it's going to be hard.

I mean, parenting is hard in general, but just a joy and beauty.

And yeah, it was kind of just sort of a distinctly different tone that makes you think like, this is going to be a great blessing to for So our bag program started just based on our own experience and what we wish we would have received when we headed home.

our main thing with the bags are we were trying to design something that would be very compact that can fit in a file cabinet just because hospitals aren't, they don't want clunky stuff sitting around you over time, we've just connected with more and more health care facilities around the United States were up to like 120 some now I think 130 time and time again, we hear from doctors, nurses that they love, that they finally have something tangible that they can give to families, because it's just not that just hasn't been an option for them to give something like this to to families.

we want to connect people to a community so they don't feel alone because I mean us, we didn't know anyone else with a child with Down's syndrome locally and so we have a little card where they can go and actually find their state.

And there's a whole list of families from every state that they can reach out to and connect to that have a child with Down's syndrome.

I started my first garden when when I was pregnant with Sammy.

And so that first summer with her, we spent a lot of time in that garden together.

we started the nonprofit and then I realized that the flowers might be a good way for us to actually fund some of these bags.

And so it started out with just selling some bouquets from our front porch, and then it became like flower subscription.

so we sell flowers locally, but then we also do flower workshops where we host a night either in someone's backyard or at a flower farm and do kind of a fundraising event using the flowers to kind of share our mission.

In September, Danielle hosted a workshop here in Holland.

they provide tons of beautiful flowers.

You learn how to make an arrangement, you eat good food.

It was a beautiful setting I felt that when I went, it was the first time I just felt like I'm not alone on this.

I mean, I felt that already from the community page.

But being in person with these moms, it gave me a little bit of a glimpse as to what our life could look like in a few years.

And yeah, I'm really at that time, like Ali said, we were at kind of a stage where, like, you're consumed by a kind of the the day to day and it's hard to get through some of the challenging medical issues.

So to be able to look a little bit further down the line and get like some of that stuff will we will be able to get over it and we will be able to reach a point where, kind of like how we feel now.

Yes, she's doing a lot better and, you know, starting to thrive.

And you can see other people in that stage a little bit further on ever since Sammy, our goal was always, hey, it'd be so fun to have a place, either a farm or something where we could employ people like Sammy, and we applied for a grant with the within the Berrien Community Foundation.

It was the Steven Upton Love your community grant.

We applied for that.

And that is really what jumpstarted the whole coffee shop concept.

without that this would have been a five year, ten year longer down the road plan.

But we received this grant and that that literally jumpstarted the entire coffee shop operation.

you go into this thinking like, I want to serve this community and I don't like, I feel like self fulfilled by being able to hire the employees that we have.

And so that's been another like really sweet aspect of this all is being able to hire employees like Sammy, but they just, they have no idea the impact that they're making on not only my life, but like I think of my son Lewis, his life, and just that he gets to grow up and like daily interact with people with disabilities is a range of disabilities and see that they they have purpose and worth this entire community gets to witness that and and daily interact with them and see that they're people that that deserve to take up space and that should have opportunities.

And and so it's just like it's so awesome to like to be able to give these people a chance and an opportunity to grow in their giftedness because so often they just aren't given given that.