My name is Margaret Watler and I am a senior at Fort Worth Country Day. The summer before my senior year, my cousin, Kristin, asked if I would go to Camp Blessing with her, a camp for children and adults with special needs. Kristen has ADHD and an intellectual developmental disability (IDD). I knew that it would, not only, mean a lot to Kristen if I went to camp with her, but also, allow me to have more experience working with people who have special needs because I am hoping to major in speech-language pathology. I began to research options for attending as a counselor, and a month later, I was attending staff training. Throughout the week, I regularly changed briefs, dressed campers with paralysis, consoled campers, and transferred campers in wheelchairs to bathtubs, beds, and chairs. 

After spending a week in a world fully accessible to those with special needs, even the smallest inconveniences pertaining to society's inaccessibility for the community caught my attention. I have spent time questioning how to improve the lives of people with special needs. 

At the beginning of the school year, I decided to take Capstone. Capstone has provided me with time to research these issues and expand my knowledge of special education. While at Camp Blessing, I noticed that weight management was a big problem in the special needs community. During meals, we had to limit the number of servings campers could have because many would overeat until they threw up. In addition, many of the campers had difficulty walking short distances and participating in activities because they live very sedentary lifestyles with little to no physical activity. Out of the many topics I could cover, I chose to Invest time Into researching possible solutions to this problem.