Local Non Profit Secures Adaptive Bike for Special Needs Child

In Brief:

🚲 A young boy named Eli, who has SCA8, received a $10,000 adaptive bike through Mission Alpha Advocacy, helping him take part in active family life.
🧩 The nonprofit was founded by Dr. Christi Cabiao to support military families with special needs, inspired by her own son’s autism diagnosis.
💬 Volunteer Megan Harrison says adaptive bikes create vital opportunities for children with disabilities to feel included and experience freedom.

There’s a lot of bad news hanging over this week from last week – so how about something to make you feel happy?

A little boy named Eli, who has a condition called Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 8 (also known as SCA8), received an adaptive bicycle worth more than $10,000 for free, thanks to the team at Mission Alpha Advocacy.

SCA8, according to the National Institutes of Health, is a rare condition that affects the brain, causing problems with coordination and movement. Most people who have it start to notice it in middle age – but it can appear early, as it did in Eli’s case.

Dr. Christi Cabiao, a previous recipient of the Niceville Good Neighbor of the Month, started the nonprofit after her son was diagnosed with autism as a way to give back and work toward a better life for military families with special needs family members.

Lauren Hopton, Eli’s mom, says this bike will change the way their family experiences life – because now they can include Eli in their activities more fully. “It allows him to be a more active participant, which is great because usually we’re either just pushing them in the strollers or they’re being dragged along in the burly behind our bikes if we’re trying to go do something active,” Hopton said, “So this allows him actually to be active with us.”

The Hopton family entered their name into a lottery at the 2025 Northwest Florida Eden Expo, not expecting to win, and began considering how to obtain the bike for Eli if they didn’t win it, although their insurance did not cover it and they’d have to pay out of pocket for it if they were to move ahead.

Megan Harrison, a volunteer with Mission Alpha Advocacy and a parent of a child with special needs herself, explained that the bike is not only practical for kids like Eli to access a bicycle, but the machine also has various safety modular features that can be added based on the child’s needs. That means additional, higher-up headrests or specifically designed pedals. Each bike is adapted to the needs of the child and the parent responsible – hence the added expense.

But, Harrison argues, the expense is worth it – for the sense of belonging and childhood it gives children with disabilities. Her own daughter, who is nonverbal and has autism, informs Harrison’s experience. “A lot of these kiddos, whatever their disability is, they just want to be a part of life and included. I have four daughters; three of them are not special needs, and one is, and you constantly can see her wanting to keep up with her sisters. We got the bike about a year and a half ago her, and at first she was kind of nervous, like, I can do this. Wait, I can do this. So now she will go on her own. She’ll turn around in the court like her sisters do, and just getting that freedom and just Getting to be like a regular kid I think is all they really want, and it’s able to help them with that.”