Yeah.
I don't think I've ever used a microphone.
Hi.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, thank you guys all for coming here,
this is really exciting.
And I just really want to thank Tyler and the Poetry Center
because they have just been so supportive of non-speakers,
and they even have a section in the library that is devoted
to non-speaking autistic poets.
So if you get the chance, I would highly
recommend checking them out.
Not literally checking them out, but checking them.
[LAUGHTER]
But this is really special to have
an event that is celebrating these people,
because they're not celebrated enough.
And I'm besides being Joshua's mom, who is over there--
and I wanted to give a little aside.
Josh wanted me to tell everyone that he is really excited.
He's not nervous, he's excited.
And due to not being able to speak for so many years,
he has a lot-- and also some of the therapies that he
did that we thought were helping at the time, actually were not,
and so he has PTSD.
And just his autism, in general, make it
so that when he has big emotions, they come out.
It really sends him into fight or flight.
So he wanted me to share that and he
wanted me to tell you that he's really fine, not
to worry about him.
So I'm also, as Tyler said, the executive director
of Teva Community.
And all the slides that were up here
before were from a workshop that we were doing.
It was our first workshop.
What we're doing is we're creating
residential community for non-speaking autistic adults
in Prescott, Arizona, as well as an educational recreation
center so we can have programs like this
where they can work on songwriting
and other creative forms of expression.
So just thank you for being here, really excited.
And I'll turn it back over to Tyler.
Yeah.
[LAUGHS]
[CLAPPING]