Artist Living With Autism Paints Sunflower Cards To Raise Money For Ukrainian Refugees
NEWTON (CBS) - It's one of Nicholas Ruehl's favorite things to paint: a rainbow.
"He has a lot of things on his mind, and he's happy and sad about things, too, but he's not able to as quickly express it verbally," said Nicholas' mom, Claudia Svoboda.
Nicholas is living with autism, and with a paintbrush in hand, he's able to share how he's feeling.
"Making visual art is helpful to him to sort of get what's on his mind out there in a way other people can see and process and understand," said Svoboda.
Something that's made him, like many others around the world, feel worried: news of the war in Ukraine.
"He's been very aware of the news and anxious about it," said Svoboda.
So, he's turned to his artwork as a way to cope.
In addition to rainbows, Nicholas loves painting flowers. In particular, sunflowers, including a mural he painted on the family's garage in Newton two years ago. It gave him and his family an idea of how they could help - by putting his talents to good use.
"My younger son, who's in seventh grade, had just found out that the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, and he said to Nicholas, 'Hey Niko, you paint really great sunflowers. You should sell some sunflowers and raise money," said Svoboda.
In early March, they turned one of his sunflower paintings into notecards for sale, with the proceeds helping refugees in Ukraine.
"We set up a goal that we thought may be way too ambitious, of $1,500, and he hit it in, like, the second day," said Svoboda.
Nicholas has a GoFundMe page set up for orders, and every order that comes in is helping him work on vocational training along the way.
"He will have to count them out, count the envelopes, bundle them. Then he mails them, so he's a part of every step of the process which has been really great," said Svoboda.
When asked by his mom how he feels about the sunflower cards, Nicholas responded, "Great job, yes."