Utah Valley: Heart of Utah

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Above: United Angels Foundation’s largest
annual advocacy event is their annual
Walk With Angels day.
Below: Chantelle Bailey and her son
Sebastian who has cerebral palsy at a
Walk With Angels event.
UNITED ANGELS FOUNDATION
When their daughter Aubrey was born,
Mark and Amber Leck were only in their early
twenties and had every reason to expect a
perfectly healthy firstborn child. Despite
having all the routine prenatal examinations
and tests, no one detected their baby was
going to have a genetic disorder.
The day Aubrey was born, the Lecks were
shocked to discover she had Down syndrome.
This unexpected news was difficult,
but the parents received
much needed support from
Kathy, a caring nurse who visited
them while their daughter
received care in the newborn
intensive care unit. She said
she understood what they were
experiencing because she, too,
had a child with Down syndrome.
As she answered key
questions geneticists and other
specialists could not answer
(because they were not parents
of children with Down syndrome),
Kathy also assured
them Aubrey was going to be
a great blessing.
Inspired, the couple shifted
their perspective, embraced
their newborn, and looked for
ways to support others.
“We realized not all parents of children
with special needs are fortunate enough to
meet their own ‘Kathy,’” Mark says. “So Amber
and I decided to start a foundation to
help others.”
The original plan was a Down syndromespecific
organization, but their friend Grant
Bigler, who had a child with a rare birth
defect, inspired them to organize a foundation
that encompassed all special needs.
“Grant had experienced the same emotional
roller coaster we had, but unlike us, he didn’t
have a large support community because his
child’s condition was so rare. Realizing our
experience as parents was similar, despite our
children’s different conditions, we broadened
our scope,” Mark explains.
The result is United Angels Foundation,
a nonprofit parent-to-parent support group
that supports parents and families of children
with special needs.
The Lecks readily admit that United Angels
would not be what it is today were it not
for incredible volunteers. Their executive
director, Jill Austin, whose daughter Joby has
Down syndrome, has been essential to United
Angels’ success. She had served the special
needs community for several years before
meeting the Lecks, and when she learned
what they were planning, she jumped right
in to help.
“We had no idea how much there was to
learn from each other,” Jill says. “Parents of
children with Down syndrome benefit from
behavioral research occurring within the
autism community, and we see the autism
community leveraging reading techniques
originally developed within the Down
syndrome community. Also, therapies and
technologies originally adapted for the deaf
are helping all children with special needs.
It’s amazing!”
A few years after starting United Angels,
one of Mark’s sisters gave birth prematurely,
and her baby was diagnosed with cerebral
palsy. Mark and his sister learned firsthand
the benefits of United Angels’ inclusive vision.
“We also discovered many special needs
children had multiple conditions, like Down
syndrome and autism, and that some families
had multiple children with special needs,
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