In the summer of 2012, Extraordinary Ventures started the Spectrum Skills Basketball Camp and I was lucky enough to join the other volunteers who worked with camp that first year. While I was somewhat reluctant to volunteer an entire week of my summer, my husband encouraged me to do so, and I couldn’t be more […]

I first learned about Extraordinary Ventures when I was still in law school. At that time, I was working with a young man who had Autism. His parents had come together with other parents and community leaders to create a unique business which aimed at employing people with all types of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. […]

My husband and I own The Barn at Valhalla, a wedding and event venue located on 30 acres in Chapel Hill. We have a staff of only three people including myself, my husband, and our booking manager. We are the owners of The Barn, but we are also the marketing team, handymen, landscapers, and janitors! […]

I vividly recall the day in 2006 when I met with the mother of a high school student with a disability and talked about our vision to develop a business to employ people with autism and other developmental disabilities. This was the start of an amazing and bold effort led by a small group of […]

As a father of an adult son with autism, I often wondered when my son was growing up, what he would be doing as an adult. Fortunately, no… amazingly fortunately, our son Evan, my wife and I found Extraordinary Ventures (EV). Evan began his work as an employee of EV in early October 2016. Like […]

I have known about Extraordinary Ventures for several years now. I have had the opportunity to not only plan events through the Event Center, but have been able to share in several events that range from adult and children birthday parties, high school and college graduation parties and just this past September, I had the […]

In 2012, I first began working at Extraordinary Ventures and I discovered that many of our employees loved making art and some were quite gifted. Some made art at home on their own but many of them said they wished they were back in school where art classes were a part of their day. We […]

I first became involved with Extraordinary Ventures in 2010. I’ve built websites for them, helped with marketing, served on advisory committees, and helped organize the annual basketball camp. As someone focused on marketing, I first saw the small business development and employment side of EV as being the most important. What I’ve learned over time […]

For the past 4+ years, we have had the opportunity to work with the members of Extraordinary Ventures and help facilitate the Extraordinary Artists Art Program. We meet twice a month and after a short discussion about an artistic prompt, we embark in an hour of art making. Our art classes are always an exciting […]