What My Daughter Taught Me About Belonging — And Why My Ford Team Showed Up to Help

For most of my daughter Julia's life, I underestimated her.

I questioned whether she would ever ride a bike, do well in school, play sports, or hit the milestones we so rarely question for neurotypical kids. Julia is 21 now, and she is neurodiverse, living with autism and ADHD. What I've learned over the years is that she wants exactly what everyone else wants: to belong, feel valued, build friendships, and grow into her own independence and success.

Last week, during Ford's Global Caring Month, I had the opportunity to bring my colleagues together to support an organization that has given our family something we feared we might never find: a path forward for Julia's adulthood.

An Organization That Fills the Gap

Julia is brave, determined, positive, and full of energy. She loves staying active, especially running, and she has a profound passion for animals, especially cats. She volunteers at the Humane Society, has interned at a local veterinary clinic and a pet boarding facility, and is currently taking classes at Schoolcraft College, working toward her dream of becoming a veterinary assistant.

None of that came easily. Early therapies, an inclusive school community, and Julia's own resilience helped her earn varsity letters in cross-country and track and graduate high school. 

But when Julia turned 18, the world she'd known for most of her life vanished almost overnight. We had to leave behind the facility that had provided her more than 10 hours of intensive therapy a week, simply because its programs and insurance coverage stopped at adulthood.

In Michigan, special education services extend to age 26, but after that, families run into what I've come to call a "service cliff" — very few organizations exist to support neurodiverse adults into adulthood.

That's where the PARClife Foundation comes in. Its "26 & Beyond" program is one of the only sustainable models I've seen for helping adults with developmental differences keep building skills, relationships, and independence well beyond the point where much of the system stops looking.

Global Caring Month Provides an Opportunity to Give Back

Because reliable funding for adult neurodiverse programs is so scarce, organizations like PARClife pour enormous effort into securing grants and community sponsorships just to keep their doors open. Having seen their impact on Julia firsthand, I wanted to bring some of Ford's energy and resources to their mission.

Global Caring Month is the Ford Volunteer Corps' signature month of service: Employees can apply for a Ford Philanthropy grant of up to $10,000 and take the lead organizing volunteer projects they're passionate about, right in their own backyard.

So that's what I did with PARClife.

Showing Up for Julia

My colleagues and I are always looking for ways to give back together, beyond our day-to-day work. We collaborate well in the office, but stepping outside to do some good in the community strengthens our team even more. Some of my teammates know Julia personally, and I knew they wouldn't hesitate to rally around a cause that means so much to my family.

Last week, 17 of my Ford colleagues joined me to help set up PARClife's new Perk Cafe, a hands-on training space where "26 & Beyond" participants will learn real-world job skills like customer service, food prep, and inventory management. We spent the morning assembling shelving and fixtures and unboxing new equipment, including an espresso machine, ice maker, storage bins, and utensils. After lunch, we returned to finish the job, working on visual task-instruction sheets that will help learners navigate each station with confidence and independence.

It's a small detail, but those instruction sheets say a lot about what this program is really about. For adults like Julia, meaningful work isn't just about a paycheck; it's about structure, purpose, and the chance to prove what they're capable of when given the right tools and support.

While I want people to walk away with a better understanding of the critical need for adult services, my real hope is that our volunteers connect directly with PARClife's participants. When you spend time with them, you quickly realize they are people just like anyone else. 

They want to belong, feel valued, build relationships, and lead full, purposeful lives.

Getting to bring this cause to Ford, alongside colleagues who know Julia and our family's story, was truly a meaningful moment for all of us.