10-4 Magazine December 2022

Truck Show Report: By Kasey Aslinger When my husband and I started showing trucks in 2014, I had no idea the impact it would have on our life and our family. Flash forward eight years and the “family” we have met through shows and the trucking industry have been some of our greatest blessings. Last year we hosted our first ever “Show & Shine For A Special Kind” truck show and raised money to help autistic children. This year marked our second annual event, and we couldn’t be prouder of our industry and its accomplishments. If you don’t know our family, our daughter Jolie was born prematurely in 2014 and has faced many medical issues in her short life. As an infant she would sleep four hours in a 24-hour period, and those were not consecutive hours. She has been in physical therapy, speech, and occupational therapy since she was only four months old. And these appointments were never in the same building, on the same day or time, and were usually over an hour drive each way from our home. Jolie hates to ride in the car, so you can imagine how unpleasant this was for all of us. At two years of age, Jolie was evaluated for Autism, but it wasn’t until October 2020 that she finally received her Autism diagnosis. It was in the summer of 2021 that I was introduced to Ashley Smith, CEO of Little Learners Spectrum Center. She had a vision to open an all-inclusive Autism School that serviced children from birth to 12th grade and brought all of the children’s therapies under one roof. We were ecstatic! But there was one problem – to get the doors of this school open and begin the process would cost about $25,000. The only way I knew to help was through a truck show. So, my husband Terry and I spent the next few months sending out letters, emails, and walking truck shows with fliers to get the word out about our event. Those efforts paid off, and we had a very successful first show in 2021, which helped get the center finally open. This year Little Learners Spectrum Center was home to 63 children and has plans to enroll an additional 100 children soon. They have added a Sensory Gym, a Community Village (a grocery store), a farm, and a doctor’s office. It is now an amazing place where children can come and play (and get the help they need). We now have our own physician in the center that is able to diagnose children with Autism within a few weeks instead of them having to go to St. Louis or Cape Girardeau and then wait up to a year for an answer. So many wonderful things are happening at the center every day! This year, our truck show had a few setbacks and had to find a new venue, but 28 10-4 Magazine / December 2022 SHOWING & SHINING