Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqueline Riddell.
Hi Jacqueline, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My name is Jacqueline Riddell, known as Jackie to all. I am a mother of three children, two born with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD and Intellectual Disabilities. I started my career at a young age of just 19 as a Firefighter later turned Paramedic. I served a total of 10 years in public safety, most of my time was in Imperial County, and ended my career early working for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park as a site supervisor Medic. I ended my career early when I seen my son was having milestone delays, and concerned, living in a school district that was 35 students in a classroom, I knew my son would not have the attention needed so we decedent to move back to Imperial County to have a smaller classroom for my son. I am born and raised in a small town Caliaptria. We are neighbors to the world famous Salvation Mountain. Our communities suffer from limited resources, extreme heat and is severely disinvested. You are probably wondering why I would move to an area with less resources than San Diego? Well, I had to stop working and it was the only way I would be able to attend my son’s needs. I dove deep in to the world of special needs, learned about IEP’s, resources like San Diego Regional Center, IHSS services and SSI services. I become an advocate for my son and later my youngest whom is also born with ASD. I love sports, and my son was starting to phase out of age level sports. I could not see my son not be a kid, so I spearheaded the first adaptive soccer league in Imperial County. Starting with just seven kids, we found a group in Calexico, California, complete other side of our county, with a team assembled of seven and gave them a call to come and play. We had so much fun our first game on a dirt lot, in the east side of my town. Once that whistle blew, and the dirt came flying up, I knew this would be the beginning of something fantastic. From that day, we were hooked. Our kids were progressing in a social group. They had friends from all over the county. Parents creating friendships finally not feeling alone in this journey. What started under the wing of Calipatria Police Activities League Soccer, we then decided to create our own non profit, Best S.T.E.P. Forward (Sports, Theater, Expression and Perseverance)From soccer, we opened baseball, flag football, and dance. From there we opened our first little facility in Calipatria, that host cooking classes, a community garden for farm to table cooking, paint classes and workshops for parent advocacyWe explore our neighing counties, going to musicals in LA and concerts in Costa Mesa, Padres Little League day were we take up the entire landing deck, to LA Galaxy v LAFC games to expose our youth to avenues of passion either as players or super fans. We host monthly Club Nights where we rent buses transportation for our adult special needs, where they gather in the evening to dance the night away in our safe spaces we have created and cook home cook hot meals for our guest . Our mission was fueled by the love of our kiddo’s and the desire to see progress in our community. Not creating awareness but acceptance. It was a very challenging journey. If we needed $5,000 we would sell 5,000 burritos. To say we worked, is an understatement. Most our team, all parents with children with special needs, or people working in the behavioral industry, worked full time jobs, and worked full time with BSF as volunteers. Myself clocking in 60 to 70 hours a week uplifting the programs. As the programs grew from the first fourteen in soccer, our league grew to as large as 160 in soccer, 140 in baseball, 90 for dance, 120 flag football. Our game days are six to seven our days and we practice in four cities in our county to allow for accessible practices. We partner with ABA providers from all over the county to come in and assist in practices to help with some barriers and challenges of trying new things and we are grateful for those supports. We decided in 2022 that we required a hub in the south end as that is our larger demographic. We took on a 15,000 sq foot warehouse that required a load of work, but we rolled up our sleeves and made it happen. I learned how to write grants, and with many denials, continued to take advantage of the pandemic forcing us in home, and learned much about writing grants with free learning opportunities from great agencies from all over the United States. In 2023 is where we won big, by winning the DDS Community Integration grant. They supported ideas that were out of the box thinking and supported social interaction, a roadway to battle loneliness. They loved what we offered and thanks to the strong support of the San Diego Regional Center, we successful got our first grant that supported paid Coach wages! We knew that moment forward, that BSF’s vision, was not just an idea but it is life changing. 2023 was a great year for us, as we had even been awarded for non profit of the year in the 36th district, presented by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia.
In 2024, we worked hard and was able to open a new program called Sensory Fitness. This program had been in the works for over a year, we just did not have the means to open. I had the blue prints of how the program would work, equipment needed. Just to install the equipment it would cost us $152,000.00. It was in March of 2024 that our mentor from Washington surprised us with a visit to SanDiego to host training on sensory fitness. 13 of us paid out of pocket and rolled out to become certified. Matt Sloan, a Occupation Therapist Assistant, is the co owner of Sensory Fitness, and uses a play approach to support physical exercise focused on the moro reflexes, posture, dopamine release strategies and all that good science based research that can benefit people with special needs. It is a form of non medical therapy that is widely used overseas and making its way to the US. As we finally became certified, we opened doors, working for free for sensory fitness. Charging only $20.00 per visit just to get the program started. Six of us, going in 110% because we believe in the results of sensory fitness. It was in April when we got a call from a committee member of Ag West, Ag West is an agriculture financing company. Bill Poulard, asked if we had any projects that need funding, as the Stewardship grant was accepting applications. The Stewardship grant is a highly competitive grant that is offered to California, Arizona, typically farming community states. I mentioned I had a program called Sensory Fitness, that is launched but would love to build our therapy play ground. I sent him the blue prints and he believed it was something that may work as it had been many years that the grant had made it to Imperial County. During that time I had submitted Sensory Fitness to the San Diego Regional Center, in hopes to become and official partner and vendor. We worked from April to June free, opening three days, then four days, then five days. Imperial County heat is brutal our electricity bill was hitting $6,o0o a month. It was getting heavy for us. And in May 2024, all in one week, we got the call from the Regional Center, congratulating us, that we have become the first social recreational vendor in Imperial County history! Then a call from Bill, congratulations, you have been awarded $100,000 to support the installs of the indoor playground! WHAT A BLESSING. July forward, we were able to finally get paid. July we had 20 clients, by December 100, today we have over 250 clients just for sensory fitness.
I share my story in hopes to inspire that as a mother I seen the word Possible in impossible. All it took was a friendly request call to come out and play and I found many people out there that understood me, did not judge my kids, and accepted us for who we were. The way cavemen survived in a world of giant predators with the odds against them was because they survived together, taking down giant beast. The unity and since of tribe is just our natural DNA, our code, our primitive instinct to not be alone, and we are stronger in numbers. Together all can be achieved when the heart is all in the right place.
BSF is Imperial County made, created jobs for locals and best part, created an extraordinary space for our kiddos to be kids.
Our goal is to open San Diego in a year tops. We hope to find support that helps us reach San Diego. As many similar spaces open up, the need is there. We hope we can spread our positive vibes and share a piece of our happiness to our neighbors in SD.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was never easy. Working in the non profit industry is a very competitive industry. It is the battle of seeking funds to support the cause. I have always found it silly how competitive some agencies can get, everyone is hosting their activities, all very different and it all benefits those we are serving, which is all the same people at the end of the day, Our biggest barrier was always maintaining the high cost of hosting sports, the need for insurances, spaces indoors from the heat, electricity cost out here is brutal. Funders are spread thin too being a small county.
We found that the best approach was applying outside of our. county with organization that support our area’s. Like LA84 was a fantastic late night find. It was an insomnia night, could not sleep because of the stress of bills, and I searched “Grants+Imperial County+Special Needs+Sports+Recreation’s” and there popped up LA84. The LA84 team is fantastic! They sent a representative from Los Angles, to us to meet our committee, walk our spaces and learn about our programs. We got awarded 2024 for coach pay for soccer, dance, and flag football. That grant supported some fantastic experiences for our kid’s and registration waivers for our north end competitive soccer.
The biggest barriers in my opinion is battling the negativity. There is no way you will be everyone’s cup of tea. In the world of customer services, you will have some not happy with the services provided and that can play a heavy toll on the mental wellness especially with how quick people can jump to social media to be mean and try and cancel people that disagree with you. It is a challenge keeping so many happy. That is when policy becomes the most important tool on your belt, to allow transparency, and rules that apply to all to avoid special treatments.
When you are doing the work, it is hard to attend to all that is why it is vital to always keep your mental wellness in check, taking free days to reset and allowing that shared load on some of your team. For me it was stressful asking for more and more help from my team. We were all so very tired. As a leader you need to keep your team motivated, burn out is real. One of my non profit leader mentors Roque Barros of Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation gave me a great tip on keeping your teams together. Is asking for a three month commitment to a project. Three months is reasonable and a typical benchmark for most projects. I use that to this day. Always creating my programs to last no more than 10 weeks. So my coaches can have rest periods between sports and hopefully ready to come back for the next sports programs. Usually all my staff sticks it out, I am blessed.
Burn out is scary, I am often asked how do I do it? Well, I made a promise, and I keep my promises. I will rest when I’m plant food and die. But I value my teams sacrifices as I know the toll it takes on the body, I coach with them, I stand next to them, I am there boots on the ground and I know they are tired. So I often offer monthly appreciations by hiring a message therapist to provide services on location for 30 minute massages, host occasional car wash days to wash team cars. Lunch ins and team retreats. The cost of hosting those things through out the year is an investment of taking care of what takes care of your organization and to me, my team is a Godsend, they are truly angels that change lives on the daily. When my coaches are getting kicked, scratched, bit, slapped and punched while our clients may be having a deregulation moment, they do not give up every, they stay and work with those kiddo’s and help walk through it together, allowing parents to not feel alone, you bet they are Angels….my coaches deserve everything and more.
I am now on year seven of hosting sports and recreations as the leader. I decided to return to school, National University to pursue my doctoral in Leadership. I have completed public administration and move forward in applying for my phD. Juggling work, kids, school and a Husband has been challenging. This is most of the US population, I am not any different than the next working family. My husband is a large part of the success of our programs, as he works for the railroads in our harsh summers, he comes out of work, showers, and jumps in to Dad duties and coach duties. Most times holding it down at home, when I am home I’m on homework assignments. Balancing a healthy work life and family life has been easier for me because of the team work strategy we have developed in my home. Coming to understanding from making those decisions that will pull one of out of the routine home duties and planning ahead. Also, I have developed a space where I can not only bring my kids to work with me during summer, spring and winter breaks but even my two frenchies Zelda and Link. Creating my happy place, my work place was a dream come true. Creating something that works for me, ended up working great for my teammates as well. Sure our offices have been taken over by what once held a placard that says “OFFICE” now says “KIDS OFFICE” and covered with baseball cards as our kids became artistic during spring break and covered windows and doors with baseball cards. The kids all look forward to kids at work day as they see co workers kids and they all play all day together feeling like it is more of a play date than “bummer, have to got to work with Mom and Dad day!” My kids also have grown a profound amount of respect and also admiration. I have gotten text from teachers saying they used me and BSF as an example of perseverance for circle of friends day. it brings me to tears, to see my sons high school presentation mention how he credits me and my husband (his step father) as the ones that have guided him towards success. I often worry they feel it is too much, but it is those moments that tell me, they get it, they are happy, they are healthy and they are going to be OK.
Work never feels like work, we always have fun, my team is amazing, we eat together, we cry together, we celebrate together.
As you know, we’re big fans of Best S.T.E.P. Forward. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
This is our mission statement on our website: www.beststepforward.org
“Best STEP Forward is a nonprofit serving the Imperial Valley area dedicated to providing an inclusive, neurodiverse environment where children with disabilities can learn and thrive. S.T.E.P. stands for Sports, Theatre, Expression, and Perseverance. We host a variety of events throughout the year that incorporates sports and artistic expression.”
Programs we offer:
Sensory Fitness opened all year around
Inclusive Dance (Seasonal)
Inclusive Cooking class opened all year around
Inclusive Gardening opened all year around
Adaptive Baseball (Seasonal)
Adaptive Soccer (Seasonal)
Adaptive Flag Football (Seasonal)
Competitive Soccer for North End Youth (Seasonal)
Competitive Girls Flag Football for Imperial County Youth (Seasonal)
Soap Box Races every October “Halloween Spooktacular” We build our races from scratch, and take the hill top!
5k for Inclusion held in March at Sunbeam Park in Seeley, Ca.
BSF Club Night for special needs adults all year around
Skills Empowerment Program, internships for adult with special needs and youth adults seeking career paths (Paid Work) all year around in partnership with IVROP, SDRC PIP, SELPA ICEO TPP.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Our 10 year goal is to open up a new county. We hope to open San Diego by end of 2026 and Indio by 2027.
My life time goal is to see BSF hit Nation Wide.
Autism Speaks was once an idea just as the San Diego Regional Center was a vision as well. It took great pioneers of the missions to get them to the level they are today. I know we can achieve that.
Only one way from here, UP UP and UP.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beststepforward.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/best_s.t.e.p._forward/profilecard/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bestSTEPforward.org?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bests.t.e.pforward2529
Image Credits
All phots are our own, or paid photographer with Monarch Iconography.
