Our story began in our own backyard after I earned an All Americain from US collegiate archery in 2010. Our family was inspired to give back to the archery community. Through a connection with a local church, we were introduced to a family with two autistic children. We eagerly took up this challenge and started an archery program to coach them. Over time they really took to the sport and improved! The two of them disciplined themselves to the sport, and their skills drastically improved.

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To push the program forward we began taking on and training volunteers from local high schools and colleges. They came from various parts of the bay area to help us promote archery to the special needs community.  

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As time went on our popularity increased. News of our service spread amongst the parents of our students and through the church group. We wanted to provide a comfortable location so that the parents could mingle and interact with one another as well, so that our students and their families could get to know one another. To this end, we realized that our backyard, as spacious as it was, did not suit our needs. We needed more room.

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Thus in 2011 we moved to a recreational area at a local college.  The increased space let us expand the number of students, but our time was limited by the use restrictions imposed by the college. We could only coach our students on the weekends and sometimes there were cancellations due to school events and weather conditions. We needed a more permanent solution.

 

In 2013, with the support of the archery community and my family, we were able to rent a warehouse in Santa Clara and converted it into a private archery range that is both safe and large enough to accommodate our growing community.

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In 2014 we received approval from the IRS and formed a non-profit organization called SNAC (Special Needs Activity Clubhouse), which supports over 20 SNAC students.  Many of our students have shown great social and physical improvements, within the context of the sport and outside of it.  Some of our former special needs students have even graduated from this program and become volunteers themselves. They now assist other SNAC students and are giving back to the community by sharing their own experiences.

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We hope to extend this opportunity to as many students as we can, and help them integrate more fully with society.  In April, 2016 we moved to the Foothill College indoor archery range.

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Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we moved our practice to the outdoor archery range to comply with social distancing rules.  In March, 2022 we started hosting monthly tournaments at a local public archery range.

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Our club will move forward and continue to help those in need during the most difficult times.