Taiga Hughes Memorial Scholarship for Dyslexia

**8/3/23 UPDATE BELOW**

Isabel Marie Hughes, affectionately known to friends and family as Taiga, passed away Saturday, July 22 at the age of 14. Taiga brought an incredible light into the world. Full of love and passion, her creativity inspired her family, friends, and so many who were fortunate to cross her path. Her art, laughter, hugs, and quick wit are just a few of the beautiful memories family and friends will always cherish. And while her gentle and kind physical presence has left this world, her creative spirit will be forever remembered as one who loved and cared deeply for others.

Taiga’s true beauty was that she made people feel so loved even while she bore the weight of constant struggles with her learning disability, dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety, and depression.

After debilitating struggles with learning, bullying, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts two years ago, we were blessed to find Horizon Academy - a school tailored to handle children with dyslexia and its associated mental health challenges.

The cold reality is that our school systems are not staffed or resourced to handle kids with learning disabilities and the weight of that gap is placed on the children. Horizon Academy took her from her darkest place - timid, broken, and lost, to being the most amazing young woman, full of energy, life, passion, creativity, and by FAR - love. Horizon built her confidence high enough that she wanted to rejoin the public school system for high school and share this exciting part of her life with her closest friends. This excitement was public, but privately her mental health challenges persisted. Her disease took her so suddenly.

We share these details only to underscore the importance of the environment Horizon Academy (https://horizon-academy.org) provides these fragile and beautiful children. We hope and pray that no one feels the pain our family is feeling. Running a private school with the services and resources needed to address the challenges of dyslexia is demanding, and our hearts want to make sure that every beautiful soul who needs the help Horizon provides can receive it.

There are so many children who are in need. An overwhelming number of statistics show that a significant number of children have dyslexia, and a majority of those also deal with mental health challenges. Support for children with dyslexia is so limited, families move across country to go to this amazing school.

Please help us honor Taiga’s memory, helping to pay it forward, reaching out to a struggling child, and giving them a lifeline to a better future.

With love,

Sean, Libby, Ryan, Ava, and Mae

3 Aug 2023: We are thrilled to announce that a young girl with a very similar story to Taiga’s will be receiving the education and mental healing she’s needs. We’ve updated our goal because she’ll need at least two years of support. Your generosity has been a true blessing to a child and her family! We are beyond thankful!