A 501c3 organization dedicated to providing housing support for adults with autism
Our first house is open in PA!
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Thank you!
We are grateful to the many loyal friends of our home who say YES every year when we ask to include one or more of their items in our beloved box! 240 of you!! We are also most grateful to the many companies who donate items to other non profits, who share with us - so YOU can share with those in need! An absolute WIN WIN!!!!
Special shout out this year to LUG - Ami and Jason Richer (rockstars) and Jonathon Redford for their donation of hundreds of new LUG bags and to our perpetual angels - Joe and Chris Campanelli who have donated to us every year since we started!! And to our most blessed angel, Chaz Dean from WEN, who donated over 250 full size items to our 2022 box and then some. Special thanks to Laura Geller, Mally Roncal, Kim Gravel, Dr. Adrienne Denese, Mary Ruth Organics, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Liberty Orchards, Tedi Musgrove and team Lindt, and the countless anonymous donors who added extra special goodies.
2022 ... keep rolling with the changes
In this season of non stop pandemic and pandemonium, we are grateful to our caregivers who are dedicating themselves 100% to the safety and wellness of our residents. Everyone is masking in our home at all times, vaccine, booster ... no matter. All of our residents got Covid and made it out ok. Despite ...
Our annual Angel Box fund raiser is revving up and we are pleased to report that 240 boxes are already spoken for! These funds cover all kinds of expenses, most especially two mortgages and all utilities. Our home is expensive to maintain and a lot of large and small expenses creep on in!
We send our thanks to the following companies or individuals who are contributing to the 2022 Angel Boxes : My Grandma's Coffee Cakes, Chaz Dean and WEN, LUG, Joe and Chris Campanelli, Dr. Denese, Kim Gravel and Belle Beauty, Mally Roncal for Mally Beauty, Laura Geller, Mary Ruth Organics, Lindt Chocolates, Russell Stover, Liberty Orchards, Farmer Jon's Popcorn, Maggie and Mary soups, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Gentile-Lichter Associates for the tons of great kitchen items, and countless friends of Stephanie's House who donate all kinds of things.
We wish everyone a great fall season,
Marie Louise and Andy Ludwig
Founders and parents
Angel box 2020
Sad farewells and loving hellos
Last fall we sent two of our beloved furbabies, Lucie and Sweetie, 15 year old schnauzer sisters, across the rainbow bridge ... it was a deep sadness for all of us.
In January, we welcomed Gracie to our Stephanie's House family. Gracie is a rescue who came from a puppy mill in Tennessee ... she has been a mommy three times, but she is now spayed and happy with her new mom, our sweet Lydia.
Gracie is a black schnauzer poodle mix. We love her already.
A mother's story ...
Written in 2013
Autism” – hearing that 6 letter word – a diagnosis for our daughter, Stephanie, 22 years ago, was nothing less than a dagger in my heart. We did not understand its complexity. Or how severely it had affected her. Back then there was no GOOGLE to click for research. How were we to know that she would never speak a sentence. Be able to tell you her name. Bathe herself. Fix herself a meal, have a date, go to college, get married or ever be left alone for more than a second. She was merely an adorable 2-year-old who suddenly lost her ability to speak, look at us or parallel play. Autism?
The grief was overwhelming, especially given that her older brother, Ryan, was battling serious congenital heart and bowel defects and was a regular patient at CHOP. We were young parents with no family to help us. Transplants from Ohio, trying to care for a chronically ill son, pay for his astronomical medical bills, going it pretty much alone and now we were adding a severely autistic daughter to the mix. There were no books to read. No step by steps on how to handle her. No caveats about “what to expect when you got what you were NOT expecting.” We set out simply enough to give life, the second time around, to a child with a perfect heart and ended up being blessed with a forever child who teaches our hearts everyday just how perfect life can be.
Two decades later, as Stephanie prepares to graduate from 14 years as a resident at the Devereux Kanner Center in West Chester, I am relishing in the blessings of autism. I now know that our daughter was chosen for a higher purpose. Getting to this place, however, has not been easy. I had to get over myself and the hardest thing for me was letting go of the guilt. What did I do wrong while I was pregnant? I was a health fanatic. It was one thing to have my first child arrive with about 50 health issues that would require three open heart surgeries and more and another to have the next one diagnosed with severe autism. I had to forgive myself and to this day, honestly, I am not sure that I have.
And we have since learned that the diagnosis comes with more than just a 6 letter word. Your world will never be the same. EVER. It will be a succession of high highs and low lows. Days when you are scraping poop off the bedroom walls and crying until you are dry and other days when you begin to notice that in that poop art there may be some artistic ability and you laugh. Outloud. Days when the rejection from everyone in the neighborhood being invited to a birthday party but your kids makes you more depressed than you ever dreamed possible to days when out the blue you hear your 15-year-old say “mommy” as clear as a bell for the first time and the happiness is so bright you squint through your tears.
You will find joy in what your child CAN do, learn to pick your battles, of which there will be many, and be gloriously relieved of the typical worries of your child having a boyfriend, driving a car, getting their heart broken, fighting about curfews, college and getting a job. You trade all of this for battling for funding, respite care, IEP updates and extended school years.
Stephanie is oblivious to all of this life hullaballoo. She knows what makes her happy and that is a warm bath, Disney characters and butterfly kisses from her mom. She knows not of greed, murder, war, or global warming. She cries when we leave her. She lights up like a summer sun when we return. She loves Disney dolls, eating frosting out of can and sneaking poptarts.
Autism – that 6 letter word that I once thought would kill me has become the very passion that drives my soul. From this challenge comes my purpose in life. In 2009 I started my own 501c3 non profit, Stephanie’s House, Inc. It is our mission to establish and support life homes for adults with autism. Because, as expected, there is nothing out there and one day we shall pass and who will care for our kids? Funding is tight. These adults need constant care in a home that is filled with love, joy, dignity and purpose.
We are breaking some ground, creating some new rules and forging a path for those 1 in 50 parents who will need to care for an adult with autism.
Soon enough, at a time when I should be moving my daughter out of a college dorm and into her first apartment, I will instead be moving her and two others into their own life home. Conceived in love. Purchased in love. A legacy of love.
Stephanie's House is a Non Profit 501(c)(3) Organization
