Our Mission

• To share God’s mission of love and hope with children and adults with disabilities
• To provide resources for families of children and adults with disabilities to help them cope with life’s challenges
• To inspire a generation of children to be accepting and unafraid of those with disabilities

An Open Letter to Our Friends

Dear Present and Future Friends of Riley’s Warriors,

If you are reading this, then you’ve come across a brochure, newsletter or web site for Riley’s Warriors, Inc. You may not be familiar with our organization and may be wondering what we are about. Our hope is that this letter will provide some answers to your questions.

We could try to describe Riley’s Warriors in terms of every little thing that we do now or have done in the past. While that might provide you with a list of events that we have sponsored, it would probably fall short in really describing who we are. Instead, let us tell you our story:

Our son, Riley, was born a perfect child – full of life and energy, complete with all the requisite number of fingers and toes. However, that all changed two weeks after his birth, when a blood vessel in his brain ruptured. We nearly lost him that night, and many times during the following weeks. And while he survived with his life, he was left with an outcome much like that from a major stroke.

To this day, he cannot walk unaided, he cannot dress himself, he cannot feed himself unless someone places food on his tray, he has severe allergies to a great number of foods, he cannot write his name, he cannot control his emotions, and his right arm is drawn up and virtually useless.

Yet in spite of all that, he has been and continues to be the greatest blessing our family has ever experienced. Not to say that we would have chosen this manner of blessing or that it is an easy thing to accept. Yet Riley blesses us and everyone with whom he comes in contact.

And through it all, our friends, family and church family have been there for us. There has never been a time that we have had to face any of this alone. Riley and the experiences that he has gone through have changed our family, our church and our community permanently and for the better.

We can sum it all up in this statement:

“God transformed our perfect child into a child who brings out perfection in others.”

We established Riley’s Warriors, Inc. in 2003 as a vehicle to share the love and acceptance that we have personally experienced with others in similar situations. We want to help other special families find the support, love and acceptance that they so desperately need. That is our vision, our mission, our passion.

You can find the specifics of what we do, along with the whens and wheres on the Riley’s Warriors web site at https://RileysWarriors.org. We hope that you’ll be moved by the stories that you find there and that you’ll want to find a way to help meet the needs of special families, whether it be through our organization, through another organization or through your own efforts.

May God bless You,

Robert and Michelle McClanahan
Riley’s Dad & Mom