Friends of Special Friends

Please help us reach our 2025 fundraising goal! See below for details.

Friends of Special Friends of Alamo Heights is a nonprofit foundation my sister Sophie Sutherland and I created to raise money for our community of Special Friends. We are dedicated to engaging and empowering not only children with special needs, but also entrusting the enlightenment about them to the next generation. We hope to bring down the financial barriers to social and recreational opportunities that families of children with disabilities encounter by allowing them access to opportunities and adventures they otherwise would not have been able to participate in.

We both found a love for this community in Junior High while participating in the Peer Tutor program and continued in high school through the Unified program. Our involvement in these programs opened our eyes to this community's needs, including access to activities outside of school and during the summer, financial support for these activities, and financial support for their families' extraordinary living expenses. This motivated us to create a nonprofit foundation to provide financial support for social and recreational opportunities for our Special Friends to participate in.

In 2023, with your support, Friends of Special Friends provided funding for the creation of the new sensory room at the Alamo Heights High School. Your generosity also enabled us to purchase much needed clothing and personal items for several students. In 2024 our main goal was  to provide scholarships for 1-2 students in our community to attend summer camp at Camp CAMP. CAMP is a specialized camp for individuals with mild to severe disabilities. CAMP is a safe, accessible environment with volunteer medical staff and one-on-one buddies assigned to each camper. A week of CAMP costs between $800-$2000, depending on a family’s income level. Thanks to everyones generous donations we were able to send 5 students to Camp CAMP.  This year we would like to be able to send more kids to Camp CAMP so please consider donating.

On behalf of the Friends of Special Friends foundation, thank you in advance for considering our Foundation and Special Friends. Your generosity is truly appreciated.

Donating is simple, click on the donate button at the top of our page. All donations are tax deductible.

Friends of Special Friends is a U.S. tax-exempt 501(c) (3) organization.