Today we’d like to introduce you to Abby Tekie.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Abby. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started working as a preschool teacher assistant several years ago. In my third year, our class had a student that had both autism and behavioral challenges. After going through two ABA therapists, I was temporarily assigned to shadow the child throughout the school day. Through that process, I discovered that I not only enjoy the challenge of working with children who have cognitive and behavioral issues but that I was quite good at it. Since then, after a short stint as a tutor, I began working full-time as an ABA Therapist in the classroom. Today, I am working on growing ELU (Express, Liberate, Understand), an afterschool program I have been developing over the last year, which provides tutoring (and hopefully, one day extracurricular activities) for children with cognitive challenges.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Raising money is always difficult especially in LA, where there are so many wonderful organizations and causes to support. However, I just continuously remind myself of the importance of this cause and that helps me push forward.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about ELU – what should we know?
ELU is a non-profit organization that provides tutoring in all subjects for elementary school children with cognitive challenges. We believe that a disability is just a challenge that a child can learn to overcome and master with a little help. Through a tutoring program designed to meet the needs of each child, we provide constant encouragement, teaching children how to process information and develop the organizational and disciplinary skills needed to excel. The goal of the program is to build confident self-sufficient future teenagers and adults. Every child is unique and special. Some just need a little more help to achieve the very best. As the organization grows, we would like to expand our programming to include extracurricular activities in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and Arts (music, painting, drawing, sculpting) to help identify areas where children exhibit strong interest or even talent.
As a quick plug, we have a fundraising event on Sunday, April 22nd from 4-10PM at Joseph’s Lounge in Hollywood!
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
For me, success is based on how many lives you are able to effect in a positive way. We live in this world together, why not take care of it and each other.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: lifeazelu
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