Lucas Camilo

A few weeks back Lucas became famous AGAIN! Or, at least, that’s how he like to tell it.

It all began in 2017 when he became part of an organization called Friendship Circle and starting spending time each Sunday with his “buddy” Jonah. Friendship Circle pairs young kids with disabilities with high school-aged kids, sort of like Big Brother Big Sister. Lucas got paired with Jonah early on and they immediately hit it off.

A few months ago we were asked if Lucas would appear in a video at the organization’s annual gala and we agreed. We didn’t quite realize what we were getting into… hours of filming in our home, interviews, videographers following Lucas around on a series of Sundays. It’s a lot to give someone such intimate access to our family’s life and we were a little skeptical about how it might turn out. But ultimately they did an ok job telling the story:

We were nervous about Lucas going to the actual gala since we figured he’d get bored and tired sitting through a long program. But he hung in there, and after the video was played to the crowd of 400+ people, Lucas and Jonah took to the stage to make some prepared remarks. And he did amazing!

As you can tell from the video, Jonah really is a great guy and it’s been fun getting to know his family. The whole experience was really positive for Lucas and we felt excited for him, although we also imagine being able to use our family story again for something even more in line with our values… furthering disability rights and justice, inclusion in schools, Medicaid expansion, universal health care, etc.