10/07/2026
WHEN EVERYONE BELONGS: Counting Stars and Green Bay Sail & Paddle
For some children, trying something new is an adventure.
For children with disabilities, it can sometimes be a source of anxiety - not just for the child, but for the entire family.
Will my child be comfortable? How will they react? Will people stare? Will they be accepted?
Those are some of the barriers that Counting Stars works every day to remove.
Founded in 2023, Counting Stars provides social services and individualized supports for children and teens with special needs and differing abilities, including autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, anxiety and trauma. Its philosophy is simple: learn, grow, connect and thrive. Through center-based, community-based and in-home services, Counting Stars helps children and families build skills, confidence and independence while supporting the whole family along the way.
That mission has found a natural partner in Green Bay Sail & Paddle.
The two organizations first connected in 2024, when Counting Stars brought a group of children to the GBSP beach for a sail. It was a first step into an experience many of the children had never had before.
In 2025, Counting Stars scheduled two sailing outings. This summer, that grew to four. Counting Stars' client population grew by 50 percent over the past year, making additional dates necessary to keep groups manageable. But there was another reason to keep coming back.
The kids loved it.
“With sailing we are giving kids an experience they’ve never had anywhere else,” says Jennifer Bourget, Executive Director of Counting Stars.
For Bourget, that's at the heart of the partnership.
“Sailing is an introduction,” she says. “Again, the opportunity, the possibility to do something new.”
That possibility can be especially meaningful for families who may be hesitant to venture into unfamiliar public settings.
Bourget says parents are sometimes surprised when she tells them their child will be going sailing. Some have told her they are often frightened to take their child with a disability to a public place and try something new. They don't know how their child might react - or how other people might react to their child.
“They don't want to be embarrassed or have their child ridiculed,” Bourget explains.
That is where inclusion becomes more than a word.
At Green Bay Sail & Paddle, the goal is not to create a special experience that keeps people on the sidelines. It is to make the experience itself accessible - to adapt, encourage and create an environment where participants can simply be part of the group.
Sometimes that means sailing. Sometimes it means kayaking.
And for the children of Counting Stars, both have become favorites.
The participants range in age from 5 to 17, and Bourget says the younger kids enjoy kayaking as much as sailing. Those who have been coming for a while, however, know what they want.
“They really love it,” she says of sailing.
In fact, some of the returning kids now ask about their next outing.
“When are we going? Is it planned yet?”
That question may be the best measure of success.
Because the real accomplishment isn't simply getting a child onto a sailboat. It's helping create a world in which that child expects to be included - in which trying something new is possible, adventure is available and belonging is assumed rather than questioned.
That's where the missions of Counting Stars and Green Bay Sail & Paddle intersect.
Counting Stars talks about creating “a world where anyone can belong anywhere.” Green Bay Sail & Paddle believes the waterfront should be a place where everyone has the opportunity to experience adventure, build confidence and connect with others.
Together, those ideas become something tangible: a child stepping onto a boat, feeling the wind fill the sail, discovering what they can do - and perhaps asking, before they've even left the beach, “When can we do this again?”
For two young organizations, it's a partnership that demonstrates what can happen when inclusion isn't simply something you talk about.
You make room for everyone - and then you invite them aboard.
