Meet Samantha Snow | Founding Director and Executive Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Samantha Snow and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Samantha, what do you want your legacy to be?
I want my legacy to be about others and the children and families we serve through Awesome Kids Inc. I don’t want to be remembered by my name, but by how I made people feel. A lasting legacy is one where the mission continues, acceptance spreads and people are continuously blessed by those that continue to be a blessing. My legacy will be the continuous acceptance of people with special needs; That when my great grandchild is at school and sees a classmate with special needs, that he or she won’t hesitate to sit next to them and be a friend. That will be my legacy. That my daughter with autism will have confidence to try new things and to learn because she was empowered to try, given a seat a the table and accepted and loved for who she is. That every child with special needs feels loved and knows they’re loved and valued. I don’t care if people remember me or my name, just as long as they remember everyone deserves kindness, respect, love and acceptance. Love as Jesus loves and that is the only legacy worth carrying on.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Awesome Kids Inc. was established to serve children with special needs and their families. Our mission is to empower, educate and celebrate Awesome Kids through different events and programs throughout the year. We started with Awesome Santa in 2016 and then introduced Awesome Soccer and Awesome Christmas Crafts and Cookies in 2021. In 2021, inspired by the families our Awesome events were serving, I established Awesome Kids Inc. as a non-profit. Already in 2023, we hosted our first Awesome Run and Family Fun Day to celebrate our Awesome Kids and their families and we’re hosting our very first mini-camp, Awesome Chicks. Awesome Chicks is for middle and high school aged girls to learn about safety, hygiene, self-care and self-confidence.
Our vision is to build an indoor recreation and education center in our community since no place exists yet anywhere close to us. Most of the Awesome Families in our community (including our own!) have significant commutes to access appropriate therapies and interventions. The cost of raising a child with special needs is already very high and when a lengthy commute is compounded with that, unnecessary stress is placed on the families when their stress level is already high. Studies have found that parents of children with special needs have matching stress levels of combat soldiers. The divorce rate of parents of special needs children is 90%.
I want Awesome Kids Inc. to grow to provide more, including respite for families, job training and life skills training for our Awesome Kids, sibling support and more. This is where our mission of Empower, Educate and Celebrate manifested from.
I know how fortunate I am for my family and friends. I have never faced a challenge or trial alone and I don’t want any other Awesome Moms or Dads, Caregivers, etc. to face their challenges alone. You need someone in your corner supporting and encouraging, sometimes just listening for you.
We couldn’t serve our Awesome Families without our Awesome Volunteers and the amazing folks in our community. We operate from donations and sponsorships and when we need something to serve our Awesome Kids, our community shows up!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I’m really a homebody at heart! But when we do have friends and family visit, I love showing off our community. Tea Time at the Cottage in Monroe is my new favorite place right now. I love having an afternoon tea there and they have been wonderful accommodating my daughter when she comes with me. Downtown Monroe is just a fantastic area to spend an afternoon. Scoops Ice Cream is always on the itinerary in Monroe, even if I’m by myself! Stone Mountain is a constant on our list too. Summertime is my favorite with the laser show and fireworks second to Christmas time at Stone Mountain. As far as restaurants, it’s the local places again that are my favorites. Kellie’s Home Cooking has been in Loganville as long as I can remember. Breakfast is phenomenal and lunch is wonderful. Wednesday is fried chicken day, so that’s the day to go for lunch! Journey’s End will always be another one of my favorites with the best chicken-and-dumplings. Outside of town, we love taking the kids to the Georgia Aquarium and Fernbank Museum. I wish we had more time to visit Fernbank- I’ve always loved going there, even when I was younger.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There’s so many people that have inspired me, encouraged me and supported me throughout my journey. If I look back and connect all the dots, God has placed (and continues to place) incredible people along my path. Some have been inspiring me for a lifetime and some for just a season. My family will always be front and center. My grandparents, parents, aunt, sister and brother have been constant pillars of support, mentorship and unfailing belief in my visions. My husband has listened to and gone along with every one of my ideas without hesitation. I sometimes jump on an idea and run with it before telling him and he supports me nonetheless. My children constantly inspire me to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I have lived a front-row seat to seeing my family prayerfully and tenaciously conquer mountains. My grandparents raised a child with special needs and founded a day camp for children and adults with special needs during a time when places like this didn’t exist. I have watched my parents start their own businesses and through the recession and housing market crash in the early 2000s, hold fast to their faith and continue working with integrity and optimism, continuing to grow their business and serve the community. My sister grew up with a disorder that caused her to stop breathing and this inspired her to become a doctor- she’s now a developmental pediatrician at Vanderbilt. My grandmother, aunt, and mom all battled and beat breast cancer.
Looking outside of family, Reagan has had some incredible people in her life who see what she can accomplish rather than limiting her because of her Autism- those are the people we listen to and cherish. It’s their words that inspire me on the hard days and to keep believing, keep advocating and keep teaching Reagan all that she can learn. Reagan’s developmental pediatrician, Dr. Rubin, gave us our first ‘roadmap’ of how we can help her develop and learn. My cousin and his wife introduced us to an incredible biomedical doctor in Charleston, SC that gave us hope and a game plan to treat the underlying medical conditions to Reagan’s autism. Although
Dr. Lieberman has retired, Reagan now sees another doctor at Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Reagan’s therapists at Summit Autism Center in John’s Creek and her first teacher at public school, Mrs. Prater, saw Reagan for her gifts and recognized she learns differently but can still learn what her typical peers are learning. Her Occupational Therapist, Dvora Zibbitt, has been telling us since we met her in 2016 that Reagan has deep and rich thoughts and we just need to help her express them. Dvora gave me hope for Reagan during some of the toughest moments. Reagan has been able to work towards accomplishing expressing her thoughts and feelings through Dvora’s interventions and combined with her amazing SLP at school Ms. Hall, Reagan is using a device to communicate even more. My mom went with me to a Grandparent Day at Marcus Autism Center in 2016
and at the event, someone told her about a swim program in Gwinnett County. Through that connection, we met Linda Cosby and Reagan has been swimming with Linda and her amazing teachers with AngelFish Georgia since. Linda has been a source of faith and inspiration, constantly championing Reagan.
It really is hard to credit where I am, credit where Awesome Kids Inc. is, credit how far Reagan has come, to just a handful of people. Through Reagan, we’ve met incredible people that have propelled Awesome Kids Inc. and some of these wonderful people serve on our Board. I consider these women my closest friends through our shared experiences of raising awesome kids of our own and their hearts for serving other families with awesome kids.
At the center of it all, the credit truly all belongs to God and His incredible love for us. I’m so thankful for each person He has placed on my path and continues to place along the way. For everyone I couldn’t name specifically, I’m thankful for you.

Website: https://www.awesomekidsinc.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awesome.kids.inc

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/4AwesomeKidsInc

Image Credits
David Bird Michelle Gunby Caelyn Baird