I want to thank Arkansans everywhere who have contributed to the Philanthropic Investment in Arkansas Kids program and encourage others to do the same. By designating your sales-tax bill for scholarship funding, you create something special for my granddaughter Teegan and hundreds of other students across the state.

Teegan, who has autism, attends the Lighthouse, which provides not just learning but growth. She receives all her therapies–speech, physical, occupational–there on scholarship. More importantly, she is loved there, and she is safe. It is a place where progress is not measured in test scores but beginning to verbalize after a year.

Her mother and I constantly weigh the sacrifices we must make for her well-being, and that includes the cost of these invaluable services. We will do whatever it takes, whether that’s working another shift or even forgoing a meal if it comes to that. Because others care about education, we don’t have to make those sacrifices.

When you don’t have these needs, it can be hard to imagine wondering where you will come up with this money, always wanting what’s best for this child. It is perhaps easier to imagine all private schools as elite students in matching uniforms sitting around reading Greek classics, but that’s not what my granddaughter’s school is. In fact, they avoid using the word school at all.

We’re so incredibly thankful to have found the learning environment that meets her needs and for those who have helped her find her place there.

– Arron Paduaevens, Jonesboro