{"id":14117,"date":"2016-05-05T08:47:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T12:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14117"},"modified":"2016-05-13T11:31:14","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T15:31:14","slug":"ryan-pays-it-forward-for-able-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ryan-pays-it-forward-for-able-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan “pays it forward” for Able Network"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir
\n<\/strong>
\n\u201cWe Ryan Grants have to stick together.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is just one example of the community outpouring received by Ryan Grant, along with his parents Debby and Greg, after they went public with their story.<\/p>\n

Ryan, who lives with Down Syndrome, had his bag stolen this past March while waiting at the York Region Transit stop on the northeast corner of Yonge and Wellington. This was no ordinary bag. It not only contained a change of clothes, but also his cell phone and newly-bought bus pass, both necessary items to maintain his independence as he goes about his day working at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex and Sunrise Senior Living, as well as working out at Club Aurora.<\/p>\n

A client of the Aurora-based Able Network, which helps those living with intellectual challenges live, work and give back independently to the community in which they live, Able and The Grant family reached out to The Auroran to raise awareness of the work these men and women are doing in the
\ncommunity and urge the public to keep an eye out for them.<\/p>\n

Since The Auroran and, subsequently, CTV Toronto told Ryan\u2019s story late last month, the Grants say they have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support they have received from the community \u2013 so much so that Ryan has decided to pay it forward to the organization that has helped him become so independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as the article came out and then CTV put it on, the community was just outraged that this happened,\u201d says Debby. \u201cPeople started asking what they could do to help and a whole group started up on Facebook I knew nothing about. People started sending me messages on Facebook asking if I knew anything about this group and it was just a lot of people asking what they could do to help, and if they could start something to show their support.
\n\u201cWhat came about was the area manager of Cobs Bread, whose name also happens to be Ryan Grant, said, \u2018Ryan Grants stick together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The bakery donated a number of gift cards, followed by a similar contribution from Boston Pizza, sold through Newmarket\u2019s Roadhouse and Rose and business-owner Jackie Playter, with the intention of raising money to replace Ryan\u2019s bus pass, cell phone, and other stolen items.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we found out about this, we were thrilled with all the support, but we had already replaced everything of Ryan\u2019s,\u201d says Debby. \u201cHis brother bought him a phone and we went out and replaced everything else he needed. We didn\u2019t feel there was anything Ryan needed the donations for, so we asked if everyone would be okay with us just paying it forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we would like to do is donate what comes to Ryan to the Able Network. They have been a huge deal in Ryan\u2019s life and it has really made him into the independent, happy guy he is. He has learned so much since he has been there and has become so independent. His independence, confidence and love of life is all because of the Able Network and we are very happy to be able to pay this forward and put this donation to Able.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Greg: \u201cFor us, as Ryan\u2019s family, it is just bringing a lot of awareness to Able and all the participants at Able, and it makes you feel good the community supports it in many different ways. We really appreciate the community jumping on board and saying, \u2018How can we help?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Grants first shared their story, they expressed some frustration at a seeming lack of police response to the incident. By early last week, there was movement on the file. As Ryan got the full star treatment on a tour of the police station, Debby says she is heartened that police are now aware not only of what happened to Ryan, but that Able Network is here, what they do and that their clients are busy members of the community in Aurora and Newmarket.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully that will get them keeping an extra eye open,\u201d says Debby. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am just amazed at the support,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt has been unbelievable. When you first have a child with Down Syndrome you always worry about what their life is going to be like and how other people are going to treat them or perceive them out there. We have never run into any adversity at all and it has been great. This isn\u2019t a huge deal someone stealing his stuff, but it was a kick in the teeth.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think, \u2018How could someone do that to him if he has worked so hard to become so independent and then this happens.\u2019 To see everyone rallying around us like this is just amazing.\u201d You learn so much about how a small gesture from one person can snowball into something big like this and make you feel really included, and make our family proud to live in this community.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe Ryan Grants have to stick together.\u201d
\nThat is just one example of the community outpouring received by Ryan Grant, along with his parents Debby and Greg, after they went public with their story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/2016-05-05-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3FH","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 06:55:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}