At 22, everything changes for young adults with special needs in Georgia.

Beth Malanoski serves as Executive Director for Exceptional Futures, a nonprofit providing guidance, a day program, support and lots of love for individuals with special needs and their families.

Serving this community is close to Beth’s heart. Her middle child, John, has special needs, and she’s experienced firsthand the need Exceptional Futures seeks to meet.

In Georgia, children with disabilities are provided support services until their 22nd birthday. On that day, those services disappear, forcing parents and caregivers to find and fund new services to support their loved ones.

This is where Exceptional Futures steps in to help.

“We have a family navigator that meets parents wherever they are when their child turns 18,” Beth explained. “They help parents look at Social Security funding and how adult services can be funded through a Medicaid waiver. 

“We coach parents and give them action steps and accountability so hopefully by the time their child ages out, they’re ready.”

Beth saw the need for guidance and support not only through her own family’s journey but also through her experience helping one of her son’s classmates. 

When he aged out of services, Beth called his family to invite them to take advantage of Exceptional Futures’ support. 

“His grandmother was raising him and his sister in Atlanta with their godmother,” she shared. 

But while the children’s aunt was visiting, the grandmother suddenly passed away, leaving the godmother and aunt to care for both children.

“When he aged out [of support services], they didn’t have a plan. They had no funding. They had nothing,” Beth said.

“I worked to get them funding, and we found an individual caregiver who would drive him places and do things with him when he wasn’t at Exceptional Futures. This was the beginning of our Family Navigator Program.”

Without this support, this young man with special needs would not have had a safe, supervised place to be while his aunt worked two jobs to support her niece, nephew and her own children.

But with Exceptional Futures, he has a loving, supportive community and his family has peace of mind.

This young man and other adults with disabilities can spend four days a week at Exceptional Futures’ day program with supervised care and opportunities to learn, build friendships and try to new experiences.

“It’s not babysitting,” Beth shared. “We focus on lifelong learning, helping them get out in the communities, continue to develop skills and have fun.”

Beth is also passionate about educating the community and encouraging dignity, respect and kindness.

“So often, people with special needs don’t get those, and it can sometimes be unintentional. Some people just don’t know how to approach [individuals with disabilities],” she explained. 

This year, Beth is sharing challenge coins with her staff and families with special needs to inspire the community to spread kindness, kindness like her son received recently.

“We were at a bank getting John a debit card, and the person who helped us was so great. She allowed him to process slowly. She looked at him when she was talking, when most of the time people look at me,” she said. 

“We want to give people like her a coin to say, ‘We so appreciate the dignity and respect that you treated our person with.’ It has a QR code that goes to our website and challenges them to keep that coin and give it to somebody else who is doing a great job [sharing dignity and respect].”

Beth’s grateful for the faith communities who are already supporting Exceptional Futures’ work to provide this dignity and respect to the special needs individuals she and her staff serve.

Beth has seen how some individuals with special needs feel unwelcome in some places of faith, but she’s proud to see local churches and faith communities in the area support the dignity of the people Exceptional Futures serves.

“We feel like every good thing that has happened to us has come straight from God,” Beth said. “We are housed in churches because they have so much space during the week that’s not used, and we have other church partners who don’t host us in their buildings but help fund us.”

But even with faithful support, the need is still great. Families need consistent, year-round support to help their family member with special needs thrive, and Exceptional Futures needs partners to continue serving more individuals with disabilities and equipping more families.

Beth hopes the organization’s partnership with the Community Foundation for Northeast Georgia will inspire more fundholders and local donors to give.

“You don’t have to have a person with special needs in your life to know your community is made better by people with special needs.”

To support Exceptional Futures and encourage dignity, respect and flourishing for individuals with special needs, click here to donate to its fund.