Friday, December 11, 2015

Lisa Aldrich

Autism Light #431 is Lisa Aldrich.




Lisa Sarber Aldrich is from Grand Rapids, Michigan. On Saturday, November 28, 2015, she purchased a cake at the Meijer in Gaines Township, Michigan. Lisa Aldrich is an Autism Light for the manner in which she showed kindness to an employee with autism who decorated her cake.

Lisa Aldrich asked an employee at Meijer to decorate her cake with the words "Happy Birthday Mandy", thinking the person worked in the bakery department. Unaware to Lisa Aldrich, the employee has autism and does not decorate cakes in her job duties at Meijer. After her cake was decorated differently than she expected, Lisa Aldrich showed kindness and smiled and accepted the cake graciously with a thank you.

Here is a video news story of Lisa Aldrich sharing the story of the Meijer cake.




Here is the Facebook post where Lisa Aldrich shared her story. The post was so inspirational that it went viral and to date has received over 150,000 shares from around the world.

Picked out a cake at Meijer. Asked bakery-looking-employee if she could write on it for me. She said she would, and...
Posted by Lisa Sarber Aldrich on Sunday, November 29, 2015


A cashier at Meijer told Lisa Aldrich as she was checking out, "the girl who wrote that has Autism. Thank you for smiling and thanking her-even though she's not supposed to write on cakes, you probably made her day (Meijer Customer's Cake Photo, Story Goes Viral, Free Press, December 1, 2015).

Lisa Aldrich explained that her family enjoyed the special cake very much. She also explained that her reason for sharing the story and the picture of her cake was to promote the simple message that "kindness matters."

"I never asked for all this publicity," said Aldrich. "I just wanted people to consider being nice to each other (As Quoted by Melanie Dostis, Birthday Cake Decorated by Worker with Autism Goes Viral, New York Daily News, December 2, 2015)."

Special thanks to Lisa Aldrich for being an Autism Light. Lisa Aldrich is an example of how people can show kindness to those with autism by being sensitive to their feelings and being gracious.  We hope that this story will inspire others to treat those with autism respectfully when they interact with them in public.

Autism Light honors diverse heroes to the world of autism.

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