The Greeley West Intensive Autism program entered a tree at the Union Colony Civic Center for the Festival of Trees. The students, with minimal help, made a floor piece and ornaments to go with a little Christmas Tree. This project started late in October and the tree was turned into the festival on Friday, November 25. This project was very exciting for all the kids to use their creativeness to create something awesome.

The tree will continue to be part of the display at the UCCC until this Saturday, December 3. The Tree Festival is an opportunity for members of the community to participate in a holiday kick-off. Anybody can enter a tree for viewing. This was the first year the IA program at West has contributed and it was the only tree from West entered into the festival.

Doing this tree was a great project for the kids to do, but it had a much bigger reason beyond just participating. The theme of the whole tree was to raise awareness of autism. They took puzzle pieces, which is the national symbol for autism, and used them as their ornaments. The puzzle represents how the autistic brain works. If you show an autistic individual a little bit of content, they can understand the information right away, just like a puzzle piece.  But if all pieces are presented at once, the big picture may initially be incomprehensible.

Greeley West IA teacher, Ms. Lorna Payne said, “Our kids are average kids to me. They just need a little more help and need to be taught the right way and they can do it just right.”

Not only did they use puzzle pieces to decorate the tree, they put a colorful floor under the tree with a poem. The poem’s idea came from Mr. Jason Renouf, another IA teacher, who suggested that that IA means “Incredibly Awesome” instead of “Intensive Autism.”

The teachers had the kids make a chain poem of Intensive Autism, but they stressed to use positive words throughout it. The poem is, “Incredibly Awesome, No Prejudice, Trustworthy, Helpful, Intelligent, Resilient, imaginative, Savant, Reliable, Courageous, Unique, Athletic, Prodigy, Artistic, and Mathematical. Junior Juan Rodriquez Jr. made this poem to be put onto the floor.

Cory Varela, a senior in the IA program stated, “We decorated a tree with ornaments and it was lots of fun!” Varela had a lot of fun doing this project and all the kids did a great job doing it. Administration saw pictures of it and sent feedback saying they loved it, all the parents have said the idea was great, and Ronda Welch who runs the Tree Festival was very impressed. All the pictures have been posted on Facebook and the Greeley West Website.