“When I was a senior in high school, my Bell’s Palsy came on — facial paralysis. I was on the swim team at McGill. I popped up from my lap and sat on the side of the pool. My friend looked at me and said, ‘Your face isn’t moving.’ I didn’t know. My mom thought I was having a stroke, so we went straight to the emergency room. This usually resolves in three to six months. Turns out I was in the less-than-five-percent chance that it never does.

I tried everything, including steroids and acupuncture. I also had a speech therapist who just wanted to help. I remember how good it felt when somebody was trying everything they could for me, and that lit up something inside me. I want to be that person for somebody else.

I always knew I wanted to work with kids. I babysat all the time and thought I would be a teacher. But then I shadowed an occupational therapist and fell in love. I wanted to be an OT.

Then, when I was in OT school, I saw a flyer looking for someone to help with her child with autism and applied. That was Rock Benson. That was God showing me this is my path. Rock was at least six years old when I met him. He’ll be 21 this year, and I’m still a part of his life and his therapy. His mom owns Dance Without Limits in Mobile, so I started volunteering there. That’s how I met Jules Starr. Her son was also in the program, and I was his partner. 

Jules started The CORE Project in 2020 with ABA therapy. I left a job of 8 years to join as the first OT there in 2021 to start something new. Today, we operate out of 4 locations with multiple speech therapists and occupational therapists in Mobile and Baldwin counties.

I work with kids who have special needs or developmental delays: anything impacting their quality of life. How can we get them independent and functional in their daily activities? That could be handwriting, fine motor skills, or play skills. Or self-care: dressing, bathing, feeding.

I tell my families that brushing teeth may seem easy, but for a child with fine motor deficits who can’t hold a toothbrush right or doesn’t know what to do with it, that’s hard to coordinate. 

These are all things we take for granted. When a mama cries because her kid pulled their own pants up for the first time and she didn’t have to do it for them, that small difference is such a big thing.

A lot of our kids have siblings who are typically developing. They see their brothers and sisters do things they don’t get the opportunity to do. Why aren’t these kids getting the same experiences as kids in school? Why aren’t they getting to go out in the community or play a sport? That’s where CORE basketball came from.

I started the league in 2023, and it has grown to four teams this past season, with ten to eleven kids on each team. Forty-four kids are participating in something meaningful, and we treat it like a real basketball game.

One of our kids loves sports. He wants to play the football his brother’s playing, or the basketball his brother’s playing. Every time I see him, he says, ‘Mia — hoops.’ That’s what he calls basketball. He finally gets the chance to do what his brother does, and what he wants to do. All the planning is worth it.

The biggest obstacles to sports like this are transportation and cost. We have 44 kids and a seven-passenger van. We’ve been lucky that people in the community have let us borrow their vans–we hope to have it again.  I don’t want it to be a financial burden on families. They’re already paying for so much: doctor’s appointments, therapies, medications, and the only brand of chicken nuggets their kid will eat. So I charge just enough registration to cover what we need. 

People in the community don’t realize how big the need is. There are so many kids out there who need services and not enough places to get them. We have seen averages of up to 20 referrals a day between the services we offer. Twenty. Our wait list is over four hundred kids long, and we can’t even tell a family when they might get in. When you look at all our programs together, that’s over six hundred families waiting.

Every kid who walks through this door is different and unique in their own way. The first kid may learn how to prepare himself a whole meal. The second kid may hold a pencil to write her name for the first time. Drastically different, but so meaningful to each one.

These kids are my babies. I’ve worked with them for so long, and I’m attached. I’ll do anything for them and anything for their families.

I want the world to see them for who they are.”

Mia Carter

(Photo by Chris Bryant)