Image Credit: Getty Images Who run the world? Sign up for Mic’s feminist of the day newsletter.Thanks for signing up! We think you'll like these too.Mic Check Daily⚡ News AlertsThe MovementThe PayoffTen-year-old Santino Stagliano was, up until a few weeks ago, sad and felt secluded because he knew he couldn't do the same things as other kids his age. That is, until his mother, Lisa Stagliano, gave her son a blank T-shirt and encouraged him to doodle. Santino was diagnosed with autism at age five. Being nonverbal for most of his life, he had always used art as a form of expression. One day in his family's South Philadelphia home, he drew a mother and baby dragon, and gave that to his mom. For the first time in five years, his mother knew just what Santino was trying to say. Courtesy of Lisa Stagliano Proud of her son and his drawing, on April 14, Lisa posted a photo to Facebook of Santino working on his dragon shirt. The following day, Lisa logged back into the social media site to find nine requests from people wanting their own “Santino dragon shirts."

When Santino saw the requests, Lisa said it was a turning point for her son; he felt understood by the world.Great Dane Puppies For Sale Miami A little over a month later, he’s hand-drawn 650 T-shirts and had over 1,000 orders. Manufactured Homes For Sale Kamloops BcSantino and his family has turned his efforts into a fully-functioning non-profit organization that supports autism awareness, selling each shirt for $5 and donating half the proceeds to The Center for Autism, the facility that he now spends one day a week at.Mobile Homes For Sale In Sault Ste Marie Michigan Santino is attracted to dragons for their “unique ability to fly and breathe fire.” To this family, the dragon is symbolic for being different, just like him.

For any autistic parent, that’s a miracle.” The drawings are so important to Santino because they're connected to his emotions. It’s given his parents a way of communicating with their child. If he’s feeling angry, he’ll draw a dragon that reflects that. “For children that might have problems communicating verbally how they’re feeling or thinking— art can be a nice way to represent those things without having to use words,” said Bethany Barney, Santino’s outpatient therapist at The Center For Autism. And for Santino's parents, their boy who was once too scared to interact with other people; who would find himself curled underneath a table at a social gathering to escape the noise of his surroundings now goes to customers’ homes to personally deliver their T-shirt. In the design process, he’ll also offer advice as to what colors may look best. “Through the whole thing, we see miracles— in a little boy who didn’t like clouds, people and empathy, something started to change,” Lisa said.

Recently, the family captured an emotional moment — when a woman grabbed the boy to give him a hug, he hugged back and smiled. "He’s bringing hope to many autistic families because their children don’t speak yet,” Lisa said of other families learning to communicate with an autistic child. And Santino has started to look at his life with a more positive outlook. “It’s pretty cool to be autistic, it’s pretty different,” Santino has told his mother. His first donation to The Center for Autism was for $2,500, which became more than a family matter when local Podiatrist, Michael A. Troiano matched dollar-for-dollar what Santino raised in his first batch of hand-drawn shirts. The change in the Stagliano’s son has brought Lisa to tears. When the City Council honored Santino for his work, he didn’t hesitate to speak out and express his gratitude. “Thank you so much for loving my shirts. I love you all,” he said at the meeting. Lisa says that he’s a miracle.

“For him not to run out of the room— he’s doing things he’s never done before. There’s a light at the end of a tunnel because of education and acceptance.” Barney has seen how Santino's work is changing the conversation on autism and making the topic much more widespread in their local community. “I think it’s really helping to spread awareness and the message that children with autism are very capable, but might just need to be supported in more creative ways,” she said. It’s been an incredible change for the Stagliano family. His progression over just the past few weeks has given them much to look forward to.It gives you hope that the world is good. We spent most of our life arguing with people in store lines because they would stare," Lisa said. “Autism is a sickness you can’t see. He looks like a normal boy and they just think he’s bad. To have strangers want to help, my husband and I wanted to cry tears of joy.” Santino is finally at a point in which he embodies the characteristics of the dragons he’s always looked up to— embracing his differences and having confidence in what separates him from others.

His transformation has given other parents hope that their young ones will one day, too, find their dragon.I’ve been thinking about what it means to be fearlessly kind in my life. What does it look like? This phrase, ‘fearlessly kind’, came to me through some hard times that have challenged me to look at the way I’ve treated myself over the years.  My perfectionism, self-criticism, and tendency to drive myself have allowed me to achieve many things, but lately, the cost has become too high. I’ve realized I need to find a different way of being in the world. A friend recently challenged himself to a two years sabbatical to heal from his unhealthy relationship patterns. He began his journey with a Ta Moko (Maori tattoo) to represent the patterns he wanted to change. The Ta Moko is on his arm so that he is always aware of where he has come from and where he wants to be. It has inspired me to take a sabbatical from the patterns I’ve developed in relationship to myself, and, like my friend, I’m considering a Ta Moko as part of the journey.  

I don’t know what ‘fearlessly kind’ will look like for me from moment to moment or week to week, I want to begin with the idea of ‘gentleness.’ For the last eight years, I’ve been a landlocked surfer. Landlocked by three pregnancies, earning a degree, existing on a student income, writing a novel, moving homes and generally stumbling through my days, bowl sized coffee cup in hand, my hair held up by a pen in a sloppy bun, but still a surfer nonetheless. I began surfing when I was eighteen. The ocean and waves taught me things that have carried me through the last twenty years, one of them being that events come in set waves. When I’ve been hit by a big life wave, I’ve learned that there will be several more lined up behind it. After the waves settle into a reflective calm, I surface transformed.  It doesn’t matter how gracefully I handled the waves, there is reward for surviving. Recently, I had to pull out of a diploma that would enable me to work as a high school teacher because my body couldn’t keep up with the demands.  

My dog, Belicia, was hit by a car and left to bleed to death in front of our house.  I found out my mother’s leukemia was starting to gain momentum and a secondary bone cancer had been diagnosed. I wrote my closest friends and said, “I need to get back to California but I don’t know how.” Within weeks, my friends had organized the funds to fly me from New Zealand to California. This wave of generosity and love left me in a sort of daze. I had to tell myself that the gift was not for me but for my family. I spent almost three weeks with my mother in her art studio, listening to family stories, and rediscovering this woman that had given birth to me, and in the process something was awakened in me. On my return to New Zealand, all of the emotions of the last year hit me and being half a world away from my family and some of my closest friends hit me. I coped with it by pushing my body too hard.  Two weeks ago I ended up in the ER with fever, disorientation, and the result was a decision to confront my limitations and make friends with them.