Live on Giving Tuesday: Amanda & Leta Raise Support for Autistic Wings Dance Company

This episode was recorded live during our Giving Tuesday fundraiser for Autistic Wings Dance Company! Join co-hosts Leta (founder of Autistic Wings) and Amanda (CEO of Autistic Wings) as they share stories, discuss the impact of Autistic Wings, quickly talk about the upcoming Medicaid cuts, and rally support for an incredible cause.

In this episode:

• Learn about the mission and programs of Autistic Wings Dance Company
• Hear about our upcoming golf tournament—and help us choose the perfect name! Vote by donating the right amount for the name you want to see through our fundraiser link https://mtyc.co/qu9pbf
  $5 – “Wood, Wedges, and Wings”
  $6 – “Wood and Wings”
  $7 – “Waggle for Wings”
  $8 – “Swing for Wings”
• Give today at https://mtyc.co/qu9pbf 
• Discover more about our studio and how you can get involved: [Studio Website Link]

Want to be a guest on Leta's Tap Styles (And My Autistic Life)? Send Amanda Trisdale a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/letastapstylesguest

Thank you for being part of our community and supporting inclusive dance!

Connect with Autistic Wings Dance Company:

• Website: https://www.autisticwingsdancecompany.org 
• Social: @autisticwingsdancecompany

Follow the Podcast:

• Subscribe for more episodes
• Podcast social: TikTok: @letatapstylespodcast

Facebook: Leta’s Tap Styles

YouTube: Leta’s Tap Styles (And My Autistic Life)

Leta’s Instagram: letatapstyles

GivingTuesday #AutisticWings #InclusiveDance #Fundraiser

Transcript

0:00

I'm up. Hello, Lita. Uh, I'm trying to make sure, let me check and see if we are live over on the YouTubes, uh, just because that would be helpful to see and I am not seeing it over here. Okay, well it seems too, hold on. There we are. Yay. The fun part about going live. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just gonna be be, you're just gonna get undercover. All right. Well, welcome everyone to an amazing autistic Wings dance company slash lead us tap styles and my autistic Life Giving Tuesday podcast to get everyone reared up, ready to go about giving Tuesday. Um. And because I was too lazy to do this anyway, but live this week, Lita is freezing because we record in our basement. It's a walkout basement, and if you are listening to this when we post it later today on the podcast streaming services, she is wrapped in a nice, warm blinky because my husband and the puppies had the door open for last half hour down here, and it is freezing cold in Colorado Springs. Now two of the important part. Woo-hoo. Uh, today's Giving Tuesday Across the Nation. People are coming together and they're donating to their favorite, uh, charitable causes, obviously. Here at Lead US Tap Styles my autistic life are the, um, nonprofit dance studio known as Autistic Wings Dance Company, or the studio Lida Founded is near and dear to our heart. Go ahead and speak it Lida. Uh, I, uh, I, um, um, give it Tuesday. I, wait, wait, what day is it? Is it Tuesday? It's Tuesday, right? Right. It's is Tuesday. It. Tuesday. It is Tuesday. So, um, for those of you net aware, uh, LTA started a nonprofit dance studio for autistic dancers, currently ages three to 99, um, here in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It cost a lot of money to run, obviously. Um, one of the things that I think we've talked about it a few times on this podcast, but if you don't know what we do, you can say that into the mic. And she's like, no, she just had a few over there. I mean, we've talked about it. If you're a regular here on the podcast, you know what autistic wings is all about if you're just stumbling into it. Autistic Wings is a dance studio designed by autistic dance, serves for autistic dancers and run primarily by neurodivergent people. Um, we do not do creative movement or. Inclusive dance. We do dance at, we take, took the classes and molded them into what was needed for the, uh, dancers themselves. Instead of asking the dancers to mold themselves into an inclusive dance environment, our classes run between one to four dancers per class, and it is utterly expensive to do this. Is it not Lita? You're re getting outta blank. I get that nice sport blanket to stay. Yes, my hands are freezing. So one of the things that we're coming to are. Uh, audience for is we need your help. We need desperately to move into a new space. We've mentioned this for the last few months. Uh, we have partnered with the amazing nonprofits that are partnering together with Colorado gis. We talked about it last month. Uh, what we are looking for is 250 people to donate at least $20 a month, or, you know, a whole bunch of people to donate. Or that would be what? 500 people donate $10 a month? Am I correct on my math there? Elita, Yes, and I've given up this blanket give, give it, give it up. Like, yeah, I've given up the blanket. um, autistic Wings is not just a dance studio, but at its heart it's a dance studio. And, um, well, she's gi the teenager's giving me a look. Wait, did you just say it's not a dance studio, but now it's hard. It's a dance studio. What? Let me try to explain, What you know, explain. wait, you could have done the explanation first. You could just. Uh uh, okay. So while we are a dance studio, while we do ballet, jazz, hip hop, tap, obviously tap, I mean, our founder is into tap. So if we weren't doing tap, it'd be sad. Uh, we do have creative movement. We do have intro to dance classes. Um. Uh, we are as soon as we move into new spot, opening up musical theater classes.'cause we have dancers who are chomping at the bit for musical theater, don't we lead us and teachers? But one of the things, um, that I think. Sets us apart from a lot of places is because we are autistic run. We are autistic led. A lot of the families coming in, they're from outside the autism community and they're getting to talk to autistic adults, to neurodivergent adults who know what they're going, what they're But they also know what mistakes to not, not make. Just, just out. Well, we also like, we speak the language. We know what SLP is, we know what OT is, we know what PT is, we know what a BA is. We understand this because we grew up with these terms, so they're second nature to us. Where a lot of these parents, the first time they hear something like speech therapy, and they're like, oh, so it's just about enunciating your words. Uh, no. It's about have to use English and then when you grow up learn you went for fucking speech therapy for fucking not make family. You don't that We are live. Watch your sorry. Dang it, I am bad at live streets. I just, sorry. That's okay. It will be cut out of the, uh, professionally uploaded one later today. Um, yes. Speech therapy is for nothing. If, if everyone just gets when you grow up, it's for nothing, nothing. For those of you who don't know, a speech therapy goes much more way past the enunciation. It goes into how the English language works, and you are probably by the time you get out of some speech therapies because you're you don't actually need to use the English language rights because apparently everybody else around you can see correct your English, even though you how to English wrongfully correct. English wrong ways. I went through speech therapy for nothing and physical therapy for nothing because apparently when you go through physical therapy, you actually know the complete, the total limits of you. You don't go through physical therapy. You just go, I'll break my body willfully and say, this is good. I wanna prepare peace for everything, for nothing. So, yeah, I mean that's one thing that having someone, having people who've gone through the therapies and there is trauma and that's a totally different. Uh, podcast, uh, surrounding a lot of these therapies, but it helps the parents see that and it helps the parents see.'cause a lot of times these autistic therapies, these autistic activities are done by people who aren't within the, um. Community themselves, they're done from outside the community or by people trying to make the outside community feel better. Because like one of the things you continuously got told, and I continuously got told when you were in traditional dance studios, is they needed to know how to help you feel comfortable in the dance studio. While also making sure that they changed absolutely nothing about the how the dance classes were run because it was more your job to make the dance teachers feel like they were giving you what you needed and you needed to give them what they needed. You And yet I was the only one in class who actually do have to use English. But though I was the only one, only only one who had. English language one day and somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, somehow, how to use the English language speaks every peace with us. Even if everybody else is, all of America gets to just use, play out flat out gibberish. I plus say help out most of my speech therapy people had a single 19th century language. And this is why we never go live is 'cause we go off on bunny trails like this. Uh, so, but no, that allows, I think it really is helpful to a lot of our parents to see that sort of things. And we can also talk about what they should expect in speech, what they should expect in occupational therapy, where these therapies overlap, why they need one therapy over a different therapy. A lot of times this is not being said by. Pediatricians 'cause pediatricians are doing this and they don't have the time to deal with the case care. And my camera just went crazy on me. Any who? Um, gimme a second to see if I could redo that and it's better for, uh, the live stream. Any who, while I'm talking QR code in the top, if. Uh, scan that QR code you will get taken to our Colorado Gives fundraiser website. Go ahead and donate. Right now we are 160 odd dollars from breaking that 2K mark. We're really hoping to break the 2K mark here in a little bit. Um, but we are that close. Just $160 gets us over the 2K mark. We are 18% towards our first 10 K. We were hoping to raise 5,000 a month and get up to 60 k. But go ahead, scan that or go to Colorado gives.org/autistic-wings, dash company, dance dash company, or just go to Colorado Gives and search autistic Wings Dance Company. I'll get you there, uh, right now. Um, they're doing a matching donation for if you do monthly donations up to the first a hundred dollars. So if you give two, three, $400 a monthly donation, uh, they will match the first a hundred, not the rest, but hey, a hundred dollars in matching donations is a hundred dollars in matching donations, right, Lita, but that's not just a hundred dollars. If you get 5, 10, 15, 20, your first month donation doubles instantly, and this is where you can say your whole baby thing real quick. If you give us money, then we won't have to shut down and then you won't be, uh, giving their babies the ion at like six, five something and then you'll be making babies. Figure out how to deal with the pressure that six, five, you know, the things. I don't know how to regulate the bowel chance. It might gay depression. If you don't, we shut down and you don't give us money. I, I mean, if you babies to have depression, go ahead. Let babies have depression, babies depression. You know, uh, baby, I think I ion Go ahead. Okay, so that is where the. Teenagers, uh, fundraising comes into play. Uh, any who, um, one of the. One of the reasons that the, I think this is so important right now is if you've been watching the news or you've been talking to any of your friends with special needs kids or special needs adults in their lives, Medicaid cuts are coming. Um, they're coming one January and they're going to be heavy and they're going to be harsh and they're going to be life changing. And for a lot of our, our autistic dancers, they're going to here in Colorado at least, we're talking about zeroing out. All, uh, special needs activities where families will no longer be given a check to go do things like autistic wings. Um, that means a lot of these activities are gonna be priced out of the range of everyday families. They're already at the max range of most everyday families. And you were going to see a lot of these activities start closing down. For the adults. I mean, there are just no adult activities after 18 anyways except for the day. Camp Cares or, well, the Adult Day Centers nurse, right. Lita. Yeah. Of the kids things. It's just, yeah, you're probably grilled when you're gonna be an adult. You're probably Aly grilled. You're grilled. You're grilled. You justed. Yeah. The kids just gonna get worse. Yeah. But um. One of the reasons we're asking for your donations is to keep places like autistic wings open to keep it where we don't have to start charging our families. It costs us roughly about $1,256 a month to do one class for a dancer. Now that's four hours of classes, but still that's an outrageous price to ask any family to play. Most of our families are on sliding tuition scales. Um. We, I don't think we have anyone paying the full amount right now. And that is all thanks to amazing donors and amazing supporters like you. Giving once more. QR code is somewhere like right about there. It's over there. It's over there, over there. Um, it, it's somewhere on the top screen if you scan that. That'll take you directly to it. We've got the link and the description below that will take you directly to, um, the deal. I. These cuts are gonna hurt bad. Uh, we are looking at not just autistic services cut, we are looking or autistic activities. Cut. We are looking at autistic services are gonna be cut. They're going to cut. Parental caregiver reimburse the parental caregiver program and a lot of our parents, one parent has had to step away from the workplace to deal with all the medical and therapies. Go ahead, Lida. For the disabled people, but the stupid stuff don't just go for the disabled people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the disabled people don't have any problems. Disabled. It's not like disabled meats, anything. Like I have frigging problems in life. Yeah. Go for disabled people, not the people who are perfectly fine. They just gave money for no reason that the world doesn. You're fine, you get money. Go for the disabled people. May I talk now? Are are you done with that cute mini rant? We could just put the countries that we, for some reason have our pay on our paycheck. You Stop. I can't cut your political rants out. Okay. Let's, let's put a pin in that and circle back to it on a different episode. Okay. Um, but all of your money that you donate through Colorado gifts, it's not just helping to keep autistic. Activities where autistic dancers, kids and adults.'cause like I said, we have adults. Um, being able to come in, enjoy our dance, it's going to help us. We're looking, like I said, to get$5,000 to move into a new facility. We have a therapy group here in town who's willing to do like mini TED talks to help. Parents, not just our dancers, but we're gonna open it up to the community, come in and do like monthly TED talks on this is what speech is, this is what occupational therapy is, this is what your case manager with your insurance company is. You're giving me a look lead up. But this seems to be something parents need to know, and no one's told them any of this. Um, having a new studio space would allow our dancers to have recitals and do performances like, um. Do actual concerts and shows in a space where we can control everything, including elopement locks for those of our dancers who elope. Right now, our dancers are limited to one class a week. Because we have so few slots, we can can't give dancers two or three classes a week, and your donation, especially a monthly recurring donation, will help us. Expand that to where we can have our dancers do 2, 3, 4 days a week, a dance. Um, and trust me, I have dancers already begging to come in five days a week. Right. Lita, she's like Uhuh and Le doesn't have to give babies depression, as she per previously said. How would I give baby suppression by telling them we're said, dad, we'll give baby suppression upset me. I mean, why would I give baby suppression? I'm not a monster. I, I mean, what's, what's that? It's a, it's of that against baby suppression. So, um, what you can do to help out, like we said, is you can hop on, um, to our Colorado give site, like I said, right? You can scan the QR code, you can go to Colorado gives.org/autistic-wings dash. Dance company, um, or just search autistic wings. Uh, you can go to our website and our landing page right now at autistic wings dance company.org. Get you directly to a, uh, form to fill out and donate. Um. We did mention on all of our socials, we had something we were going to state.'cause we can't just live off. Colorado gives donations 'cause it's one time a year that Giving Tuesday comes around and you kinda have to get do us stuff year round and I am wearing a golf shirt. I wonder why I'm wearing a golf shirt. Lita, what could we be announcing? Uh, uh, we took Jack and made him a golfer. Npi, we are announcing that due to the fact that, um, we absolutely, positively have to continue doing fundraisers after this. Um, I mean, we're a nonprofit. We are fundraising nonstop at Autistic wings. Autistic Wings Dance company is going to do their very first. Golf tournament. I thought it was Darcy. What do you mean by there? Okay, we're going to do, well, this is on our podcast, not on the studio's. YouTube. So, okay, so our, Dan, our nonprofit, is doing our very first golf tourney. Yay. Next April, we're still, uh, putting the dates in stone. We're also going to do our first pickleball tournament. If you would like to sponsor either or, please contact us at info at autistic wing dance company.org or, you know, So maybe if you're one of my friends from, you could, uh, maybe, maybe see if there's any type of time in your schedule, because I haven't seen you guys. Oh. So, K. K. yeah. Okay. Um, but here's the thing. I have lost all creativity, trying to get the Colorado give stuff going.

Uh, next week, by the way, 7: 18:46

00 AM We are going live for the power Hour. Hour for Colorado gives be here. Um. Here's the thing, I absolutely positively have no clue what to name the golf tournament. So I asked around, and we got four different names from, uh, staffers and board members at the studio. And what we're gonna do is if you donate. To the, our Colorado gives at certain amounts. We're going to count that as you voting for that specific name. So here are the four names. Uh, it is going to be the Woods Wedges and Wings, uh, tournament. You're giving me a look. That is a $5 donation if you want wings and wedges. It is a $6 donation if you think Waggle for Wings is a better one. That is a $7 donation and swings for Wings is our final, uh, contender at $8 a donation. Now, this is not a federal election. This is not your local election. Feel free to vote early, vote often. You can donate multiple times for your favorite. What does that look? You? Didn't like any of 'em? No, no. I like the. I questioned the other two. There were four. I had four. was the fourth one? Hold on. Okay, back to the beginning At five, our$5 contender is wood wedges and wings. Our $6 contender is wings and wedges. Our $7 contender is waggle for wings and our $8 contender is Swing for wings. L. I thought the first two was the same thing. They literally like, like the first two is just the second one. Take it away. The beginning part of the first one, I. You like the waggle, so you will be donating for the, uh, what is the waggle is a $7 one right? Yeah, because if you wagg jacket, if you. Jack being the pit bull who is upstairs right now and not down here on the live. Um, so here's the thing. We are putting that live. Um, right now it, it's not like you can just like go in when you're doing it and go, I wanna do it for this much, but just go over to our Colorado gift site or head over to our website and donate $5, $6, $7, or $8. You know how I came up with that lead? Uh, which. How does one count off before you start tapping? uh, Five, ever told me this. A 5, 6, 5, 6, 7, 8. Okay. Okay. I skipped like skipping grades. Did skip dance levels, like skipping grades. Um, but yeah. Okay. So if you're on the YouTube channel watching or on the live it, it's up here wherever the QR code is. Um, if you are listening on a podcast that is autistic wings dance company.org or Colorado give slash autistic Ash Wings coats over there. company. Over there. Okay. Well on mine it's showing up right here. That's why I keep doing right here. But you're saying it's over there for you? Well, this is going great. Uh, any who? Uh. Yay. This is why people should go over and watch the YouTube after they're done listening on the podcast.'cause there are some funny visual outtakes on the YouTube channel, uh, including me in a golf shirt, the only golf shirt I own for going to Antler Creek. Uh. And I probably should remember how a golf club works before April. Any who's, so not only are we looking for people to tell me what the heck we want to name the thing, we are looking for people to don't, to actually, uh, sponsor it. If you are interested in sponsoring, um, the title sponsorship for the golf game is 7,500. The title sponsorship for our pickleball game that is coming up also in April. I have overbooked the studio in April. But the pickleball game in April is at the beginning, golf games at the end. Uh, pickleball, I think we've got down for, um, 3000 for the sponsorship title. There are other deals. Get ahold of us and we will make the perfect sponsorship package for you. Um, if you really like a name and you do not want to donate, like, say. A million dollars to make sure that that name wins in the, uh, donation for votes competition. You can get onto our socials and we are going to have social media posts that you can share with your family, friends, colleagues, and everyone, um, to tell them why they should go vote for your favorite name for the golf tour. You're looking at me word. Good news on all of this. Is that all that money counts towards our portion of the Colorado Gives incentive fund. And if you've heard me talk over the last couple weeks, um, obviously not last week, we were off for Thanksgiving, but part of Colorado gives is we're all competing for a huge amount of money with the, um, Colorado, uh, gives incentive fund, it's a million dollars and uh, we are. Wanting our portion of the fund. Uh, each nonprofit gets what they've earned, like brought in, it gets put to all it all together. And how much of a percent we made is how much of the percentage we get. Um, it'll be fun. It'll be exciting. Don't forget, uh, it's going to be amazing. Plus it helps me figure it out. So again, that is if you would like wood, wedges and wings as our, um. Title for the, uh, golf tournament. It's $5 wings and wedges is a $6 donation. Waggle for wings is a $7 donations and swings for wings is a $8 donation. Woo hoo. Um, you're like, I've tried to make this fun and exciting. Uh, it'll be amazingly, uh, fun and all that. Uh, we will have. The details, hopefully by the 10th. Uh, the voting continues through December 9th, which is giving or Colorado gives day. Uh, we here in Colorado get a Colorado due two, giving Tuesdays back to back. Um, Colorado gives day is our big one. Don't forget to tune in next week.

7: 25:29

00 AM for the Power hour one. Um, if you have never been through Colorado Gibbs deal each. There's like four, five power hours on Colorado gives where whichever nonprofit raises the most money during that specific hour, gets an extra $2,000. Um, and we're gonna try and win the 7:00 AM power hour. So join us. It's going to be coffee filled. Uh, trying to get everyone rah rah for the last day of Colorado gives, um. It is gonna be bad, and I can't express this enough. With those Medicaid cuts, nonprofits like autistic winks are going to need more support from the community than ever before. And I know it's hard out there, and I know not everyone can give, but if you can give even $10 a month, it will help us support our families and support getting into new studio space where we can start helping not just with the dance, but taking over some of that. Community, um, stuff that we are going to lose with this Medicaid. Uh, cut Yeah, so plus we raised the money. Maybe just, maybe just maybe just maybe just maybe just, maybe they won. Next time they do a bunch of cut, they make up for everybody else do braly and newly, There is that, um. Bradley, the disabled people, when you put the cuts in the budget does thing, no one look bad. Definitely, definitely doesn't make anyone look bad. And before we hop off, uh, if you've not seen Lead Us The Wing hashtag the Wing Challenge for hashtag kickstart generosity. Um, it's on our stuff. Uh, all you have to do to do it, and we are going to show videos next week during our live. So get your videos in this week. Uh. Take a golf ball, take any pair of shoes. I think today we're gonna film you doing it in, uh, your, uh, boots, correct? Lita versus your tap shoes. Yeah, she's nodding her head. Yeah. You do a tap style wing. We're going to do a tutorial on the autistic wing, social media, and on LTAs social media. So if you don't know what a wing is, we will have that up today. Um. If you can use a tap style wing to kick the golf ball, congratulations. Great. You don't have to donate to charity. If you can't. We are asking you to kindly be sweethearts and donate.$20 to a charity of your choice, preferably autistic wings correctly, to Virginia. Not the only one feeling like we made a bet, but bet disguised as a challenge. Yes. Oh. If you, um, take the challenge up. Do not forget to tag Lida at Lida Tap Styles. Most places, I think on TikTok, it's LE's Tap Styles podcast attack the Dance Studio, autistic Wings Dance company. Yay. Um, use the hashtags, uh, the wings challenge, the hashtag kickstart generosity, the hashtag tap into autism awareness. Um, and. If you're in Colorado and you're donating to autistic winks, don't forget to tag our amazing friends over at Colorado Gibbs Foundation, um, so that they can see all of your cool videos as well. You know, even I, I posted yesterday, yesterday, today, yesterday. I wanna say I posted, uh, Miranda, our little one, uh, trying to do the WINGS challenge Her mother just has to give us money because. Um, but she tried, she kicked the ball. She just didn't wing the ball. Okay. And at her age, we give her try. I. We also had to explain the fact that Miranda doesn't have to shout out people because of she, she's five. She, she's five. And I, I, I, I, I, I, I think those other probably her friends who are probably also five, five year olds. Parents don't really wanna give money because they 5-year-old can't do stuff because they're five. But I'll link to that in the description below to the actual worlds on your Facebook page or the podcast Facebook page. Um, when you do it, even if you make it, please tag and challenge three of your friends so that we can make this go. A little viral. That way we can get people across the country exciting, excited today, giving Tuesday and excited throughout the rest of December to help these charities out.'cause I know we're not the only ones who are struggling at the moment. Everyone's struggling are giving me a look. I know. I try to be nice to everyone. Um. But yeah, so get your submissions in so that I can put them all into a nice little montage for next week's, uh, live. If you are listening to this on your favorite podcast, streaming service next week over on the YouTube channel, we are going to do a YouTube live at 00 AM Like I said, do not forget to click the notify me button to get notified for that specific episode going live so that you can come join us. We're gonna see if we can get. Anyone, uh, else from the studio to do the WINGS challenge? I think we might try to get a couple parents to do it today. Hi parents. I have golf ball. I have you. Uh, and I'm standing at the door and there's only one way out of our studio currently. And, and I am barely now the recorder for stuff. So. Alright, well we are going to head off 'cause we've gotta get to the studio today. Have a wonderful Giving Tuesday. Bye. Um, don't forget if you can donate to autistic wings. QR code, if you're watching on YouTube, is somewhere on the screen. Uh, autistic wings dance company.org gets you to the stuff just as much as Colorado gives does. Um, we are, like I said.$200 away from cracking our first 2K on that fundraiser. Um, overall we've raised over $5,000, but between all of our fundraisers in November, but we'd like to raise 10,000 on the, uh, Colorado gifts, specifically 18% of the way there. Um. If you wanna go donate for one of the, uh, golf names again, those were, uh, wood wedges and wings for $5 wings and wedges for $6 waggle for wings for $7 and swings for wings for $8. You can donate as many times as you want. Just make sure you donate that amount of money, and we will put your tally in. Have a great giving Tuesday and see everyone on Friday. Bye.