Waves Academy of the Creative Arts and Career Center

10/30/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for our Waves Fall Festival! We are very grateful you could be with us to start this holiday season! This may be a long post, but I hope you will read until the end!

A big shout out and a big thank you to Big Air in Warner Robins for donating two gift certificates and to Olympia Skate Center in Warner Robins for the wonderful basket and gift certificate for our winners of “Guess how many pieces of candy?” First place went to April Baccigalopi who received the Olympia Skate Center basket and gift certificate. Second prize went to Caleb Kinkade who received a Big Air gift certificate for their party package. Emily Lauria won a Big Air gift certificate for their family package for third place!

Thank you to South Houston Internal Medicine in Perry for your generous donation to support our Waves Academy program and events! We are grateful for you all!

We also want to thank and acknowledge Lane Packing Company in Ft. Valley for donating two pies for our first annual pie walk! They also donated two gift cards that will be given out during our Waves Christmas Party and Bingo Celebration on Dec. 12th from 4:00 pm-7:00 pm! Thank to Waves Academy for purchasing ten pies from the Oil Lamp in Perry. We are grateful to support our community for our mission! 10 families were able to go home with a delicious pie!

Thank you to Amanda Holland Estate Sales and to Laura Beighly owner of Posh Pickins’ and Perfect Pieces for the large donation for us to start our Harbor Shoppe at Waves~Resale With a Purpose! We are grateful to now be able to offer real work based learning as a pop up shop for our students and the community! Thank you to everyone that shopped with us and for everyone that supported Waves Cafe! Schuyler and his culinary team, who all received the ServSafe certification during our first 6-week Waves Academy cohort did great work!

Thank you to Bonaire Hardware Store for your generous donation of miniature pumpkins, beautiful mums, and straw bales! That was very unexpected! Please make sure to support them in Bonaire!

Thank you to my family, Russell, Schuyler, and Cameron for everything you do behind the scenes! I am so grateful for all the memories we make together! Whether it is seeking donations for pies and raffle items, grocery trips, driving our trailer around loading and unloading straw and mums, putting together our new basketball game, or eating a late lunch or dinner, I am grateful because I get to spend it with the ones I love! Schuyler your homemade cookies are always made with love and care! I can’t wait to see what you will make for our upcoming events!

Thank you to our Waves team, our students, and their families for helping us with the games! Sharon Smith thank you for being there to set up and your tireless devotion to our students! Matt Bilbrey thank you for your gift of art through face painting to bring cheer and happiness! Thank you to Cassie Taylor for being with us on your birthday to make sure everything got set up and ran smoothly! We were so happy your mom could join you at the welcome table!

Carrie Gleason, we are grateful for you and for all you do in our community and at Waves! You have a wonderful gift working with students that need additional support to reach their own personal goals! Thank you to Kenya Vails and to Emmanuel for supporting us whenever we need extra hands! Hannah and David even made sure all the chairs were put back where they needed to go! Thank you to Christy Nobles for your heartfelt donation!

Thank you to Melecia Morant for joining us! She is the author of the book, For the Love of NICU and my friend! Please support her by purchasing her book at Waves or at Amazon! Her experience as a NICU nurse in Macon will bring you comfort if you have the opportunity to meet her!

Thank you to April Baccigalopi and her family for joining us to support families navigating a vacation to Disneyland! If you are planning or would like to plan a trip, reach out to us and we will connect you with April!

Thank you to our generous and kind donors that have made the last 5 months possible! They are the wind beneath our wings that want to be felt but not seen. They only want to make a difference in the lives of our students and their families! I just don’t have the words to let you all know how much your support and encouragement means!

Thank you Jada, Justin, and Mikhi for your time at one of our game stations! We are grateful for the time you gave us all! Thank you Emily for donating several treat bags! We were happy you could attend!

We are also grateful for all the families that drove down from Gray and Macon to be with us and for those who just travel down Russell Parkway, Hwy 96, or Hwy 247! We know it can be a challenge navigating the traffic getting to us!

If you weren’t able to attend please join us on Saturday, Nov. 14th from 10:00 am-4:00 pm for our 6th Annual Waves Holiday Marketplace! If you’d like to be a student vendor to sell your art, baked goods, seasonal decorations, services, or other items you have made please contact Shelley! We are currently accepting applications! We already have some wonderful craftsmen you will not want to miss!

If you serve the autistic community or those with a developmental challenge, reach out to apply to join us. Waves student vendor table registration is free. There is a $40 vendor table fee for those offering community services. Applications are accepted until all spots are taken. We all look forward to seeing you all on Nov. 14th!

[email protected]
www.wavesacademy.org
478-733-2597

10/29/2026

We hope to see everyone later today for our Waves Academy Fall Festival and Fundraiser from 4:00 pm-7:00! We are setting up our Harbor Shoppe at Waves~Resale for a Purpose for a sneak peek! We have beautiful curtains, bedspreads, sheets, and wonderful furniture pieces including an Ashley dresser with mirror to raise funds to give student that apply a scholarship to attend our culinary, retail/customer service, entrepreneur, computer, and art studio cohorts! It is an exciting time and we would love for you all to be a part of the beautiful community at Waves! 🌴🎉🥰

10/23/2026

Hi, friends! I am so grateful to be in this important role, creating a grassroot effort with a great group of people with a passion and a vision to serve autistic students to offer hope and a future!

I created Waves Autism Center, LLC 8 years ago, but this is the first time I have entered into the non-profit world to build a safe haven for students aged 14 and older to gather to explore different pathways to support their own personal goals.

I have wanted to do this for a long time but kept telling myself that there were other programs in our area meeting the needs. I kept asking myself what I could possibly do to add to what was already here. I have been told that we are all needed and there are more students that need our support than ever before. Funding has always been a hurdle to keep things moving along, but I am learning not to be afraid or anxious to ask for support especially when advocating for the most vulnerable kiddos and young adults I know.

It is an honor to advocate for our current and future students and their families. It is an honor to create a space for them to explore, grow, and have hope for a better future. We are not just another non-profit, we are a community of people that have been through many years of not knowing what will happen next. They are used to things being difficult and together with our Waves family and our community partners I hope that we can ease some of their burdens. By the time students get to high school families have filled out countless applications and forms, not knowing if this time will be any different.

I can't promise things will happen straight away, but I can promise I will do my best to keep sharing stories of resilience to encourage our students and their families to never give up. Along with our Waves team I look forward to meeting community partners, parents, grandparents, guardians, teachers to partner with us. My hope is for the autistic community to feel heard and validated. They are some of the most creative and loving humans I have ever met. I want everyone to know them, too.

We have students that are tactile, auditory, and/or visual learners and it is our job to learn their gifts and their interests for the best outcome. If you ask a fish to climb a tree they will fail, but if you ask a fish to swim, they will shine! We have students that attend college and universities. We have students that want to own their own businesses. We have students that aspire to be a chef, artist, writer, drone specialist, aircraft mechanic, and own a lawn care business. Some want to be teachers and professors. They aspire to be leaders in our community and in the state.

When a student finds themselves in high school, they are facing the question what do they want to do after high school? For some students they may need a little extra time to explore their options. Those 4 years of high school go by so qu**ky and are filled with a lot of academic work that doesn't always allow time to decide which pathway they should take.

Waves Academy of the Creative Arts and Career Center, Inc. gives students the space and the time to explore career options, learn workplace readiness skills, participate in work-based learning, and choose to explore post-secondary education opportunities for higher learning.

Thank you for considering supporting our Waves Academy of the Creative Arts and Career Center, Inc. program encouraging our students to never give up and to let them know that we care. Below you can see where we have the greatest needs. I will be happy to give you a tour of our center and answer any questions that you may have. We do have an online payment portal to send donations, or we can meet you at Waves to receive a check, donation, or raffle item.
In Gratitude,
Shelley Spivey
478-733-2597
www.wavesacademy.org
[email protected]
[email protected]

10/17/2026

💗

This photo is the face of transformative education. Current leaders, edupreneurs and microschool enthusiasts, joined together in Centerville to celebrate the educational opportunities available to students in their communities.

For this and more, we celebrate them and applaud them on their way to transforming their communities. This work is hard, but it is so worth it!

Academy of Innovation
Waves Academy of the Creative Arts and Career Center
Waves Autism Center
The Ferguson School
The Attuned Community School
Glory House Inc.
PGF Learning Academy
New Point of Georgia
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DJWVnLk84/
Divine Minds Academy
SHINE Autism
Holloway’s Prep Academy
Rising Scholars Early College Academy
Alphabet Kids Early Care & Learning Academy, LLC.

10/17/2026

Thank you, Rising Scholars Collective! 💗

Waves Academy of the Creative Arts and Career Center came out to the Microschool Workshop today! So proud to have them in our community. Check out their amazing work!

10/17/2026

Thank you to Rising Scholars Early College Academy for hosting the 2026 Micro-school Workshop today! We enjoyed meeting with other wonderful people that are making a difference in the lives of neurodiverse students each day! We are truly grateful to be a part of this growing community! 💗🙏🏻

10/17/2026

Thank you for the invitation to attend! It was a wonderful workshop! We look forward to great things to come and growing community together to serve all of our neurodivergent students! 💗 ~Shelley, Cameron, and Schuyler Spivey

Our founder led a Microschool workshop in partnership with the National Microschooling Center
So much great community work was done and
The Attuned Community School
PGF Learning Academy
Holloway’s Prep Academy LLC
Glory House Inc.
Waves Academy of the Creative Arts and Career Center
The Ferguson School were all in attendance!

10/12/2026

Thank you so much for everyone that joined us for our first Waves Academy Lunch & Learn!

We are grateful to Mr. Kevin Hall that joined us from Westmoreland, Patterson, Mosley, & Hinson attorneys at law in Macon to share with us about SSI and other available disability resources! It was very informative and helped us all to plan for future transition goals!

If you’d like to hear more about how Waves Academy can support students and their families as they plan to transition from high school or have already graduated, including offering information about a Stable account, please send an email to [email protected].

Follow us on Facebook for our next Lunch and Learn coming in November 2026! If your business or organization would like to sponsor future Lunch and Learns by providing lunch it would be a blessing to our families and to Waves Academy, 501(c)3. Please call Shelley Spivey at 478-733-2597! 💗

10/12/2026

Thank you to Bleckley County High School for the invitation to attend your BCHS Family Transition Resource Fair! It was so heartfelt to see everyone again including one of our students from the spring and to meet other parents of students we have served! We look forward to seeing everyone again! 🌴💗

&CareerCenter,Inc.

www.wavesacademy.org
[email protected]" rel="ugc" target="_blank">[email protected]
478-733-2597