Hi friends of the Buncombe County community help us open up an autism safe and friendly FULLY enclosed park. 
as a mama to an autistic child, it can be super challenging for me to keep her safe at parks. 
she elopes and has a sensory processing disorder making it unsafe for her to play on these playgrounds due to her pain tolerance being very high, she has no fear of things ESPECIALLY heights. She also struggles with big crowds and tends to get extremely overstimulated and it causes her to elope or stem out. Sometimes her stems can be self harm or harm to others. 
as a mother to an autistic child and another little it can be extremely overwhelming with an eloper, taking them both to the park together due to not being able to watch both at them at the same time, unless I put a friendship bracelet on my autistic child. This isn’t fair to her or her sister or myself or her dad. BOTH of my kids should be able to enjoy the park together WE shouldn’t have to be on edge the whole time, we should be able to enjoy ourselves along with the kids. It’s extremely upsetting feeling like I can’t involve my children in normal day to day activities because it’s not safe for my oldest. 
did you know Drowning is the No. 1 cause of death for autistic kids due to a behavior known as "elopement," according to the National Library of Medicine. MOST of our parks are right beside bodies of water. Last fall we took Heizel to the park over by Brookstone and Heizel ran away from us and jumped into the water and fell under, we just happened to be very lucky we caught this before it was to late. This enclosed park could truly prevent this from happening to other parents and children. 
Autistic children also have a high chance of running out in the road and getting injured by a moving Vehicle, MOST if not all parks are beside or near a busy road or some by a highway. Having a fully enclosed park would help prevent this as well. These kids deserve to be safe, this would also benefit kids with Down Syndrome, Asperger’s, and others that fall into the ASD category.                                            
I encourage you all too please be mindful of this petition and try to put yourselves in my shoes and other parents like me who also struggle with this issue and think of the kids who miss out of the activities your kids get to enjoy. 
This would truly change our community and others with similar disabilities in such an amazing way, So please help us make this happen!
my goal is to hopefully work with the commissioners and parks and recreation to find the best place for this. I’m hoping we can add on to a park already built to help save money.
this will take time but Prayers will truly help and just getting as many people possible to sign this petition and share it with everyone you know.