Ahwatukee boy needs help to make a dream come true

All that 10-year-old James Lang of Ahwatukee wants are friends.

And if Ahwatukee residents help him out by March 7, he could be on his way to seeing his dream come true.

James is an only child with developmental delays from a brain tumor he was diagnosed with when he was 9 months old.

“Five years of treatment and a later autism diagnosis has left him with a limited ability to get what he deeply wants: friends and the social experiences he sees his peers enjoying,” said his mom, Pamela.

An adaptive bike for special-needs children could put him on the road to his dream, she said.

And Lang hopes he can get that bike through an online crowdfunding effort launched by a Michigan-based nonprofit that in six years has raised over $1 million and has provided more than 1,000 adaptive bikes for children and teens with special needs.

“It is a daily dagger in my heart to hear this outgoing, thoughtful, funny 10-year-old ask me to call a friend to come over and play and there is no one to call,” she said.  

“I have tried everything I could think of, including begging on Facebook and even dragging in kids we don’t know from the playground. His bike will help him physically, emotionally and socially,” Lang added, explaining:

“He is an outgoing and thoughtful child. This bike will lower the wall between isolation and active participation with the outside world.”

Lang’s site, greatbikegiveaway.com/JamesRishi?tab=MyPage, shows that she’s about $700 shy of achieving the $2,775 goal for James’ bike.

Anything collected beyond that will go toward Friendship Circle’s campaign on behalf of other special-needs children who need adaptive bikes.

Lang’s campaign was helped partly by a 15-year-old boy who has donated his birthday money after hearing about it.

The campaign has a deadline of March 7.

“People have to fundraise for so much these days, I worried it might get lost in the sea of solicitations, but I posted it anyway,” Lang said.

A friend shared the post with a wide list of people who decided to pitch in.

Lang said she looks forward to the day when James tells her, “I’m going to ride my bike outside, Mom. Bye!”  

“Believe me, he wants that, too,” she added.

“There is a stereotype about kids with special needs that they are like happy idiots, and I think this enables neurotypical people to not lose sleep over excluding them.

“But in reality, most of these kids are very much aware of what they are missing and it hurts them as much as it would hurt anyone, to be aware of the simple joys of life but be consistently unable to experience them.”