'Heart of the charity'
Weises upfront about special-needs daughter, Hannah, to raise awareness.
ERIC HANSEN
Tribune Staff Writer
SOUTH BEND -- A child is crying, despondent because she knows she is different from other children, frustrated because she cannot form the words to tell the world how she feels, and yet she inspires.
"When people talk about the pressures of this job and stuff," Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis began, "it's nowhere near the pressures of having a kid with special needs or being a kid with special needs.
"I mean, do I want to be successful? You know I have a passion for success. But what I go through is nowhere near the trials and tribulations that my daughter goes through in everyday life. Her job is a hell of a lot harder than my job. With that perspective, it keeps you grounded."
Hannah, 11 years old and the younger of the two Weis children, has global developmental delays: delays in speech, motor skills and social skills.
***A child is laughing, lighting up the neighborhood with his unbridled joy.
Nine-year-old Joshua Horvath hasn't been the same since he received a bicycle and a trampoline last year through a grant of Hannah's Helping Hand. The special-needs third-grader is one of roughly 60 local kids who benefited from the program in 2005.
"Socially, it's done a lot for him," said Joshua's mother, Shelly. "Before, he would kind of pull away from people. But now he sees kids in the neighborhood and says, 'Come jump on my trampoline.' He's so excited. It's something that wasn't going to happen with just us."
Hannah's Helping Hand is the branch of Hannah & Friends that gives money to area disadvantaged families for things they need for their special-needs children, things like fences, computers, sensory rooms, and yes, bikes and trampolines.
In the bigger picture, Hannah & Friends' vision is a 100-acre farm in McClellanville, S.C., where children and adults with special needs can live as residents."It's going to get started within the year," Weis said, "and it's going to take about 10 years to complete. There will be a rec center and an equestrian center and greenhouses."
Hannah herself would not be a candidate, because the Weises have always been able to afford private care for her.
"It was never a struggle for us," Maura said. "We were always beyond the financial need, but that's part of the reason we feel grateful to God, and we feel like you need to give back."
The Weises are teaming with Healing Farm Ministries on the project, which will be called Thornhill Farm.
"Maura is really the heart of this charity," Weis said. "She works on it every day. I'm just a figurehead that helps raise awareness and raise money. We have a kid with special needs that we don't ever try to hide. We try to use Hannah as a messenger for everyone else. People think we're nuts, that it would just be easier to live private lives, but Hannah has given us a purpose in life beyond taking care of our own family."Hannah, meanwhile, has no awareness of the foundation, no awareness of the goodness that has come from her struggles and courage.
"But she definitely knows she's loved," Maura said, "and that makes you smile. What also makes you smile are some of the letters we get back from the families. There's no difference in Hannah smiling riding a bike and another kid with special needs riding a bike. How could you not be touched by a smile?
"To me, that's what life is about -- helping one another," she said. "I don't mind if that means I'm out in the public instead of behind closed doors. I have to be who I am, and this is who I am."
