“Meet the Hutchins Family! We are Michelle and Matt, alongside our three children, Juliette (8), Wyatt (5), and Caitlin (3). We are from Columbus, OH. From Wyatt’s birth, there seemed to be something different about him. We couldn’t quite put our finger on it, but one evaluation led to another, which led to another, which led to another. When Wyatt was only 3.5 months old, he underwent an MRI that gave us the terrifying answer. Wyatt has a rare genetic disorder called Lissencephaly. Lissencephaly only affects 1 in 100,000 people. It means “smooth brain” in Latin, meaning that Wyatt’s brain did not form all of the bumps and ridges. This leads to significant developmental delay, often not surpassing abilities past the infancy stage.

“Our world felt like it ended in that moment. We grieved the life we thought we were going to have, with our perfect family of 4, one girl, one boy, perfect balance. Thoughts of would we would need to move to a ranch, get a new car, school, making sure he is taken care of for life just kept coming. We thought we were being punished by God and didn’t understand what we did to deserve this. As time went on, we changed our line of thinking.

“Wyatt is the biggest blessing we could ever imagine. He is a perfect angel and can do no wrong. He has touched countless lives. The day of the diagnosis, we talked to our pastor and he helped us to see that we should still continue to live our lives and do things we enjoy. Michelle has a passion for running and had considered running a marathon in the past. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to achieve that goal. The ideas spiraled from there. We wanted to raise awareness for a very subtle type of seizure that both lissencephaly babies and typical babies can have called infantile spasms. These seizures can cause irreversible brain damage if not caught early, yet practically no one has heard of them! Between selling shirts, and taking donations, we were able to raise $14,000 for Nationwide Children’s Hospital for infantile spasm research and awareness. Matt also caught the running bug and on October 17, 2021, Michelle completed her first marathon and Matt completed his first half marathon. We had a wonderful group of family and friends that came together to run with and support us!

“Wyatt’s diagnosis has also driven Michelle to be a source of information for parents who receive the same diagnosis. She tries to share with them the hope and joy that comes along with the challenges of living in the world with a special needs child. As Matt and Michelle looked back at their lives they realized that God had been preparing them to be the parents for this very special boy the entire time and there was no punishment at all but a plan for this boy to touch the lives of everyone he meets and provide a daily reminder of God’s grace and love.

“Matt and Michelle have 2 girls. Juliette is the older sibling and Caitlin is the younger sibling. Juliette is such a strong and empathetic child. Having a younger brother with special needs encourages her to reach out to others and to be as helpful as possible. She loves to volunteer to be a “buddy” for her brother’s miracle league baseball team. She knows how to do practically everything for Wyatt from G-tube feeds, to seizures and overall safety. She has unfortunately grown up faster than she should have. Wyatt has a decent amount of extended hospital stays. Those wear on her the most, as she just wants to have her family together.

“Caitlin has never know her brother in any other way. As a two year old, she was grabbing towels when Wyatt was about to spit up and holding Wyatt’s head up when he needed it. One day, Caitlin wanted to dance with Michelle, but Michelle was busy cooking dinner. Caitlin just shrugged her shoulders, grabbed Wyatt in his wheelchair, wheeled him into the family room, and started dancing with him, not thinking anything of it. It’s a memory that we will always treasure. Both girls love Wyatt so much.

“My cousin, Michael (who also ran the half marathon in 2021!) saw Taffy’s Voice and nominated us. We had no idea and were so shocked when he told us about it and that we were chosen! The thought of having the chance of a lifetime for our entire family to make memories in Disney World brings tears to our eyes. We feel very blessed that Wyatt’s story has touched so many people already, and hope this will be another way to continue spreading hope and awareness when life takes a different path than expected. Thinking back over the past 5 years, sure, it would be wonderful and a lot less scary for Wyatt to be healthy and “typical,” but we wouldn’t have the experiences, stories, blessings and life that we are lucky enough to experience because of our perfect little boy.”

Our goal as an organization here at Taffy’s Voice is to send as many families as we can on their dream vacations. In order to do this, we are going to need to raise money. We have a couple of different ways that we're going to do that, at least to start.

The first is going to be donations. A Venmo account is up and running for Taffy's Voice to collect donations. Every single penny that you donate will go toward either this family’s dream trip or the next family's dream trip. Our Venmo is www.venmo.com/taffysvoice and can be found HERE or by using the QR code you can find in the photos.

The second way we're going to raise money is by sending TWO MORE families on trips to Walt Disney World! Here are the details on what exactly we are giving away:

- Trip for up to 4 people

- Round trip airfare

- 7 nights in a Walt Disney World Resort Hotel

- 5 day Park Tickets

- Memory Maker

- Disney Dining Plan

- Round Trip Transportation from Orlando International Airport

We are selling 250 chances (numbered from 1 to 250) for this trip at $140 apiece, so you'll have a 1 out of 125 shot of winning the trip with your $140 purchase!

Once your ticket is purchased, we will post your chance number (which will be a number between 1 and 250) on the Taffy’s Voice Facebook and Instagram Pages and will hold the drawing on Facebook Live.. We will be posting all of the names and numbers on the Taffy’s Voice Facebook Page HERE

Thank you all so much for your support, and we're looking forward to sending families to Walt Disney World and other dream destinations for years to come!

-Phil Gramlich & Tim Spence