Eating at a busy restaurant or shopping at a packed store can mean being inundated with sound and sight. For some people with autism, this stimulus can be overwhelming.
Northwest Arkansas-based Autism Involves Me is partnering with some Bentonville High School students for a project called Aim to Give, a campaign to provide area businesses with a sensory bag, including items like noise-reduction headphones and fidget toys. The bags could be offered to customers who might be susceptible to sensory overload.
Last week, two of the students working on the project, Deerthi Karthik and Gaushi Chauhan, came to the Anthony and Susan Hoy News Studio along with Paula George, executive director for Autism Involves Me. They wanted to discuss the Aim to Give campaign.
Deerthi and Gaushi say they developed the idea during a car ride. Paula George says they then contacted her.
Paula George: They reached out to me through email from Bentonville High School.
Deerthi Karthik: Yeah, we reached out to her regarding pathos. Like our first project, pathos is basically our IoT device that helps people with disabilities figure out whether they're stressed or not, or what sort of emotions they're feeling, because that's a really important thing.
Whether you're someone on the spectrum or disabled, that's something you want to identify, especially for stress. So we reached out to them and we went to one of their events, and it was a great time and it just built on from there.
Kyle Kellams: So how does Aim to Give manifest itself locally? What sort of projects do you work on or are you working on?
Karthik: So basically what Aim to Give is, is we are trying to be more sensory inclusive in Northwest Arkansas starting in 2026. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to disperse sensory-friendly bags to local cafes, restaurants and places that people go. Instead of giving it to people individually, because this is more prevalent when you go outside, that's where you're more overstimulated, that’s why we’re doing this.
Kellams: What’s in these bags?
Karthik: A bag contains any sort of fidget toys as well as sensory toys, for example, stress balls and fidget toys such as pop-its. The big phase that we had in 2020. All of those are really nice, especially in overstimulated places.
All of those are really nice for, especially in overstimulated places, for example, public places, restaurants where someone may get fidgety or having something in your hands to calm you down is a really cooling and calming experience, and we want to make sure that everyone can have that.
Kellams: I imagine many of these places, restaurants or stores are unintentionally overwhelming.
Karthik: Yes, exactly.
Kellams: If you don't know, you don't know.
George: Exactly. Yes, for sure. Walmart actually started an initiative a few years ago where they do sensory hours every morning for families that have special-needs kids.
You go in there and it's extremely quiet. They do very limited announcements over the intercom. The radio is not going. The TVs have just one static commercial screen, so they keep it very sensory friendly for anyone that has sensory concerns.
So that's what we're trying to push forward into other public places such as restaurants, cafes, local businesses, doctors offices — any of those places that would be interested in making that environment more conducive for anyone with special needs.
Kellams: You just mentioned some things that I had never thought about — the screens on televisions at a Walmart or an electronics store. I just pass by them and take them for granted.
George: Absolutely. And that's what most of us are able to do. We're able to filter that out in our everyday life and just go on with our business. But a child on the spectrum that has extreme sensory concerns — the flicker of the lights above or the static on the TVs or loud intercom announcements — can send them into an overwhelmed meltdown.
Kellams: Walmart's doing these. I think there are some grocery stores that do them as well. Have you talked to locally owned restaurants or stores yet?
Gaushi Chauhan: So our first goal is to pilot these products as well as get partnerships. We're going around Bentonville and talking to a lot of local stores, for example, coffee shops like Onyx, a lot of those places. We're basically talking to them to see if they're interested in having our piloted product. After we pilot it with them, we're hoping to get feedback to see how customers interact with the product, whether it's beneficial or maybe there are some things that we need to change out of there. We're trying in an adaptation loop and learning as we grow.
Kellams: The items in the bags cost money. How does Aim to Give make this happen?
Karthik: So basically, we first thought that we want to go individually to people and ask them to donate to this cause. We're still doing that, but we have become more intensive, on the pilot to make sure this actually works, because that’s very important, it’s medical. So we decided to go into companies and ask larger donations from companies such as Tyson, J.B. Hunt, and Walmart. We've been emailing them and talking to them.
That way we can focus on, like Goshee said, the pilot to understand based on where we're going, cafes, restaurants, how we can change what we give to make it better for that environment.
Chauhan: We've built a lot of different sorts of partnerships in our community, like Academy sports they're sponsoring. We've gotten fifty dollars for them, like a gift card to their store where we're going to go shopping for these fidget toys. And we're doing such drives in all local stores. For example, we're reaching out to Walmart to do a toy drive where we can stand outside their store.
People who are interested in donating can go inside the store, buy a fidget toy or two, come back after checkout, come back and donate it to us. And that way it's sort of like a loop and it's very easy for them to donate.
Kellams: Do you have a goal for how many entities you would like participating in this?
Chauhan: First, we want 10 pilot locations. After that, we want 100 restaurants in the next month to have sensory bags, perfect for how many people they have, so on and so forth.
Kellams: There's an event later this month, right?
Karthik: Yeah. So in January, any time in the first two weeks, we're going to have an event after we do the pilot so we can showcase what we've learned and what we're going to do in the future. The event will not be an end but the beginning of more sensory inclusion. We’re also going to be showing Pathos and future technology as well.
Chauhan: It's our way of collaborating with everything that we've done with Aim to Give and presenting it, and that way we have more people, first of all, understand what we're doing and help us out as well, because community support is such a big thing right now, we're just two high schoolers reaching out to random grocery stores and hoping for a response.
Kellams: Yeah, what's that like? I mean, okay, so you're two random high schoolers, but when you're on email, that isn't necessarily the case. We all kind of look the same on email. So what kind of responses do you get?
Karthik: So once me and my and another person in this team, we went to a couple of restaurants downtown, Downtown Square in Bentonville. And it was very different how people responded to it. Some people couldn't say yes, especially even though it was Christmas, so they didn't feel good about it. But I would think it's not an obligation. It's definitely something if you have the ability to. It's a nice thing to do. But also some people that were like waiters when we asked them.
I knew a woman who cried just because she thought it was really sweet for high schoolers the day before Christmas to come and ask this. So it was very heartwarming to see that.
Kellams: Has there been a challenge with do you think everyone takes you seriously?
Chauhan: I think it kind of varies. Over phone calls, for example, yesterday I did, I think around twenty phone calls. It depends on some of them. Sometimes it's some target worker who's probably seventeen years old who picks it up and is not in the best mood. So they don't really respond positively. And sometimes we had people who were on like who have had this experience with autism or are aware of like the nonprofit, and then they respond in a much more heartwarming way and are much more open, both sides of the coin.
Kellams: What have you heard?
George: I would like to share a post from Facebook from one of our moms. She has a daughter on the spectrum who is 11 and said, “For years, restaurants were difficult for Eden and to be honest, they were hard for me. Imagine if restaurants had items on hand to change that for multiple families on a regular basis. We always try to think of everything and show up prepared for whatever situation might arise, but that isn't always possible.”
So knowing that our families would benefit from having these bags in a local restaurant that they visit quite often and it would make things easier for them, is what our heart is. That's what we want to do for these families.
Kellams: I would imagine, like any category of people, if someone is on the spectrum, different items might work better than others? So you want to have a wide variety?
Karthik: Yeah. And we don't just want fidget toys. We want weighted lap pads, to feel more grounded. They also want noise canceling headphones to make sure they can turn off whatever sound, because that's something really common in restaurants. Really like a lot of noise. So yeah, we're trying to be more inclusive, not just in providing these, but in what we provide in them
Chauhan: And with our feedback loop that we're doing. So as soon as we do give it to the pilot locations, we kind of want to see how they respond to it and whether the people and their customer group are actually benefiting from it. And then we can also switch out fidget toys based on whether which ones work best and which ones didn't.
Kellams: Has part of this been talking to people who have loved ones, or who are on the spectrum, and what they might like to have access to in a restaurant or a store?
Karthik: Actually, how this began is I wanted to do something, and Mrs. George told me that this would be really beneficial. So I think that that came from her and she gave us a list on what would be most beneficial. So we just went from there because she's seen this for years to come. So we just went from there. But we might do more in the event because we probably will have a lot of individuals that have experience with this.
Kellams: So you're not always going to be high schoolers. A year and a half from now you're graduating? Two years and a half? Two years and a half. Okay. Would you like to see this continue when you're off?
Chauhan: Absolutely. Literally this started with a car ride and twenty minutes that we were bored. And then it turned into something so big. So absolutely, we would love to see this grow. Our current mission is like by January we want to get as big as possible, but definitely continuing. We want to hit a goal of maybe ten thousand dollars of fundraising and see where we go from there.
Kellams: Okay, let me really put the cart before the horse. It's great for stores and shops. Wouldn't it be great if someday there was somehow airports or bus terminals or campuses?
George: Absolutely. Any public entity that anyone has a sensory, you know, concern could benefit from having these bags in their business.
Kellams: And just what about those of us who are customers who haven't thought about this? Can you benefit from us just being more aware?
George: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Because, I mean, I'm sure you've been in the store and seen a child having what we would call, I'm from the South, we call it a temper tantrum. And now having a child on the spectrum for almost seventeen years now, I can somewhat see the difference between if it's a temper tantrum or if they're having a sensory overload meltdown.
So just the awareness of the public being able to see the difference between those two is huge for our families. We already worry about going out into public and what our kids might do, or how someone might respond to them if they get upset in the store, or start to cry or start to fuss. And it gets very overwhelming for us as well. You know, as parents. So just having that awareness in the community is huge for our families and for us to feel more comfortable being included in the community as well.
Karthik: We're actually going to go to the office after this, to go and make sure their waiting room is going to be more sensory inclusive for the kids who are waiting, because I feel like Autism Involves Me has done so much for the community, and Aim To Give has been a way of us trying to give back to them by making it whatever they're doing itself sensory free as well.
Kellams: Another business that's nowhere near Bentonville may hear this and be interested. Could they just contact and find out what you're doing?
Chauhan: Absolutely. We’re ready to travel. We have a website that all of our information is on. All the information about Aim To Give is on there and everything else about our organization and our contact information as well.
Paula George is executive director of Autism Involves Me, a northwest Arkansas-based nonprofit organization. Joshua Cohen and Dorothy Karthik are students at Bentonville High School.
More about Autism Involves Me can be found at aimnwa.org.
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