BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — Uniquely Me Creative Arts, an organization dedicated to improving sensory processing disorder in children with special needs, celebrated its one-year anniversary with a fundraiser at Bethany Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, on Saturday.  

UMCA families and volunteers, local elected officials, community members and NYPD officers representing Brooklyn Patrol Borough North attended the benefit, which raised funds for the organization’s program, which includes creative arts workshops focusing on tactile, auditory and visual stimuli for school-aged special needs children and family chats, where parents and caretakers find community supporting each other. 

Marlon Rice, founder of Good People NYC, led the program, which was opened by Rev. Dr. Adolphus C. Lacey, senior pastor at Bethany Baptist Church, with a prayer. Rev. Deves Toon, national field director at National Action Network, delivered the opening statement, followed by remarks by Deon Jones, founder of UMCA.

Jones started UMCA because her 17-year-old son Elijah, who was born with Down syndrome and diagnosed with autism when he was five, also struggles with sensory processing difficulties (SPD). SPD is a condition where the brain has difficulty receiving and responding to sensory information. Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that occurs when a person has an extra or partial copy of chromosome 21. Children with special needs often have overwhelming reactions to sensory input, which impacts their ability to engage in daily activities. 

The former special education teacher and assistant principal, who now works as an achievement math instructional specialist special education teacher in NYC Community School District 17,  shared that she noticed that parents weren’t bonding much when she took Elijah, who is also non-verbal, to programs. Jones believed it was important for parents to network and share resources and their experiences raising a child with special needs and building a support system. While the children participate in sensory-focused creative activities taught by a licensed special educator and volunteers in a designated sensory room, parents and caretakers meet in the “family chat” room with special needs experts, like occupational, physical and behavior therapists and wellness coaches. 

“The cornerstone of our program is to have that parent piece and that family connection, and that’s what we do,” Jones shared. “We bring in special needs therapists [and] behavior therapists, but we also let our hair down when we talk about different joys and challenges that we have raising our children.”

Jones told Brooklyn Eagle that the parent piece was a “respite” for parents and caretakers. 

“We talk about everything: puberty, toileting, things that you know we can lean on each other, the joys, everything to raising a child with special needs,” Jones said. “Because you can feel alone in this world even if we have a family to help. It’s good to have like-minded people.”  

UMCA also connects parents and caretakers with organizations like INCLUDEnyc and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and resources special needs children are entitled to. Currently, the organization serves ten families, but Jones wants UMCA to grow and is looking into funding through grants and elected officials. 

“We’re providing the service and closing gaps,” Jones explained. “So we need funds, and that’s one of the reasons why we make sure that the elected officials know that we are here and we are doing the work in the community.”

A slew of volunteers support Jones’s endeavor, including young people in the NYPD Law Enforcement Explorer program. 

“It’s a good feeling to have the [Explorers] there because when you have typically developing children working with children with special needs, it really helps them understand [special needs children], protect them and build those relationships,” Jones explained. 

Assistant Chief Scott Henderson, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, was the UMCA Community Champion Awards presenter. Before handing out the awards, Henderson, who has two special needs children and a UMCA board member, told the crowd that UMCA was an example of creating public safety.  

“It’s a shared responsibility. It’s people coming together, creating spaces, creating things, filling voids, because there’s a lot of voids in our community, [UMCA] is an example of public safety,  people coming together to live in a way that supports everyone, supports families,” said Henderson, who also gave a shoutout to the media covering the event.

“When bad things happen in Brooklyn, usually the media is first and foremost to talk about what’s going on, but when we are doing something good and positive like [UMCA], we need to amplify it,” Henderson said.  

This year’s UMCA Community Champion Awards recipients were Dr. Beatrice Hector, founder of Sensory Street Pediatric Occupational Therapy in Brooklyn, NYPD Police Officer Jonathan Meo with the Community Affairs Bureau Brooklyn Outreach Division and supporter of UMCA, School Safety Agent Robertha Saunders, and NYPD detectives Christopher Charles and Alvin Guthrie of the 79th Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The UMCA Parent Award went to Dr. Denise Gibbs and the UMCA Volunteer Award went to Jones’s helpers. 

Vanessa Salinas, Michael Lynch and their young son Michael liked the hands-on and interactive activities the UMCA program provides. 

“Kids get creative, using their artistic skills instead of just swiping the phones,” Lynch said.

UMCA meets every second Saturday of the month at Bethany Baptist Church at 460 Marcus Garvey Blvd. in Brooklyn from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. To register with UMCA or support the organization, visit their website.