From all of us at Suncoast Financial & Insurance Agency — proud supporters of Spectrum Sailing
Over Labor Day weekend, NBC's Sunday TODAY turned its Sunday Spotlight on a story we've been cheering for from the sidelines for a while. As part of the network's "Common Good" series, correspondent Gadi Schwartz visited Spectrum Sailing's camp in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where a group of kids on the autism spectrum spent the last days of summer learning to sail on Lake Michigan.
Watch the full segment here: https://www.today.com/video/kids-with-autism-embrace-inclusive-sailing-camp-269403717932
If you have a few minutes, it's worth every one of them.
Spectrum Sailing exists because founder Scott Herman couldn't find a camp that would take his autistic son. The programs he approached didn't have the right staff or the right structure, and there was simply no way for his son to participate. He described it on air as a lonely path for a special-needs parent. Rather than accept it, he built the program himself. The first camp launched in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2018.
Today Spectrum Sailing is the only national autism sailing program in the United States, running more than a dozen camps a year in coastal cities, lake towns, and inland communities alike.
Sailing is the platform, but the curriculum is about life skills: communicating clearly with a crewmate, staying calm when the wind shifts or a maneuver goes sideways, and trying something new in an environment designed to make that feel safe. Instructors and volunteers are trained specifically to support autistic participants, and group sizes stay small.
The kids feel the difference. Thirteen-year-old camper Charlotte told NBC that being out on the water feels like ruling the world. Her mom said watching her daughter thrive in a program like this was something she wasn't sure she'd ever get to see, and that Charlotte came off the dock nothing but smiles.
Suncoast Financial & Insurance Agency is a proud supporter of Spectrum Sailing, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that empowers autistic individuals by building water skills, social skills, and confidence through free sailing camps across the country.
We spend our days helping families protect the things they love, and for a lot of our clients that means time on the water. Boats, personal watercraft, weekends at the lake. So a program that opens the water up to kids who've been turned away everywhere else hits close to home for us. As Herman put it in the segment, parents drop their kids off nervous and pick them up smiling. That's the kind of thing we're honored to be a small part of.
If the segment moved you the way it moved us, here are a few easy ways to get involved:
Congratulations to Scott Herman and the entire Spectrum Sailing team on a well-earned national spotlight. We're glad to be part of the crew.
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