A Cumberland County nonprofit is welcoming neurodiverse residents to its newest community center.
CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — The Neurodiverse Network Community Center may just become the home away from home for neurodiverse people in Pennsylvania.
Director and founder Leann Firestone started the nonprofit in 2022 for individuals, like herself, who have invisible disabilities.
One program goal is to bridge the gap between support services and peer groups.
“I rationalize and empathize with what everybody is going through because I am going through it as well. Most of our support groups are peer-led and everything is by people that are actually experiencing what they’re going through,” Firestone said.
Neurodiversity expresses itself in many ways with some of the most well-known being autism, ADHD, intellectual disability, dyslexia, dyscalculia, epilepsy, hyperlexia and dyspraxia.
Firestone and her team of volunteers took inclusion seminars at schools and medical offices across the Commonwealth for over two years.
They’ve since opened a community center …