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EGGY INGENUITY MICROBUSINESS AIDS AUTISTIC INDIVIDUALS disorder, and behavioral, anxiety, and sensory based, and we really liked the idea of something issues. Placing Trevor in a smaller group home that would get Trevor outside and engaged with was one part of the solution Barry found to help nature. As well, there had been a coop in the her son thrive. Raising backyard chickens was backyard before this became a group home. Pete grew up on a farm in Wisconsin where raising It’s a busy day for Trevor Barry. Bundled in the other. It made sense that the smaller-occupancy animals was always a part of the picture. And I a coat and hat, with a wicker basket close at hand, he reaches into cozy nesting boxes where group home setting reduced Trevor’s anxiety have always loved farms and farm animals. The five fat hens cluck and rustle. Carefully gather- and behavioral issues. But how did Barry hit more we thought about it, the tasks involved in raising chickens, and collecting and selling their ing their eggs, he sorts and tallies them by hue upon hens as the other half of the equation? “It was the combination of several things,” she (brown, blue, green, and white) and carries the eggs back inside. Working with care providers says. “We wanted to create a job that was home Continued on PG 12 who help out at the Lake Bluff group home he shares with another autistic adult, Trevor will go on to package and label the eggs, and bag fresh-baked trays of bone-shaped doggie treats, before the morning is through. It’s all part of Trevor’s routine with EGGceptional Abilities, a micro-business program shaped to provide Trevor and his group home with meaningful work in a structured and supportive environment. EGGceptional Abilities sells the beautifully hued eggs at two Lake Forest locations: Elawa Farm and Lake Forest Juice, as well as Forest Greens Juice Bar in Lake Bluff. The dog treats and a few personal care products are prepared during the winter to sell at seasonal fairs. Started in 2015, EGGceptional Abilities was the brainchild of Trevor’s mom, Mary Ann Barry, and her partner and co-founder Pete Baranek. For the seven years prior to launch, Barry, a paralegal with Edward Jacks in Lake Forest, had struggled to help her son acclimate to the day-program and residential programs he participated in. “I wish I knew who originally said, ‘When you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism,’ because it’s true,” says Barry. “Each has such individual needs. We tried everything we could think of to make the available, more general programs work, but Trevor was just spiraling. We finally realized that we were going to have to take matters into our own hands, shaping a program that was a better fit.” Brightly blue-eyed and intensely focused Trevor, who is now 30, functions with the age equivalent for adaptive behavior of a 5-yearold. In addition to autism, he has seizure Mary Ann Barry, co-founder, EGGceptional Abilities. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MONICA KASS ROGERS BY MONICA KASS ROGERS THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND
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