Objective

Coach Swinney and his family owe quite a bit of gratitude to Coach Gene Stallings, former University of Alabama coach. The manner in which Coach Stallings handled the life experiences of raising a special needs child is well documented. In addition to being touched by Coach Stallings, Coach and Kathleen were also touched by John Mark Stallings. Today in Tuscaloosa, The Stallings Center is home of the Rise Program; a pre school program serving special needs children. The street in front of the Gene Stallings Center is named in honor of John Mark Stallings. The All In Team Foundation will support the Rise program annually in honor of Coach Stallings and in memory of John Mark.

Statement of Need

The Rise program located at the University of Alabama provides a pre-school program for special needs children. For the last 30 years, UA’s RISE program has helped prepare more than 5,000 children with disabilities for regular public school classes. The free program is designed to increase development in children, ages six weeks to five years, with disabilities and prepare them for their next classrooms, regular or special education.

The RISE program looks like any other early childhood center, but with additional provisions that address the children's specific disabilities. Speech, physical, occupational and music therapists come to the center, so the children have all their interventions in the same place. Even students without disabilities attend RISE, creating a true mainstream environment in the program. For the past five years, 100 percent of RISE graduates have been placed in kindergarten classrooms with their non-disabled peers.

In addition, RISE has served as a practicum and internship site for more than 800 students from UA, other colleges and universities, and high schools.

Over the years, the RISE program has saved more than $46 million in public funds. The nationally acclaimed program serves as a model for the development of similar programs across the country.

Funding

Funds will come from Foundation activities including Woman’s Clinic, Fantasy Camp, the foundation’s two annual fund-raising functions.