Meet Katherine Murwin

We recently connected with Katherine Murwin and have shared our conversation below.

Katherine, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
My purpose found me, his name is Nicholas. 27 years ago my son was born and we eventually received an autism diagnosis. Life was not going to look anything like we had anticipated, and what families needed didn’t exist, so we decided to create it. There was almost nowhere to go as a family who had a child with disabilities. So we created Kids with Autism Can. It’s a place where families could come together, do fun things, not feel judged and not need to explain behaviors. We have been hosting social events for families for over 15 years and have branched out. We now include Sensory Cooking so kids and adults with food challenges can improve their cooking and tasting skills.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a mom of three, a mom-in-law to 1, and a dog mom to 4! I am a business owner (Sensory Cooking) and my husband and I run Kids with Autism Can which is a non-profit that promotes families having social opportunities to connect and come together and have fun. Things are always changing in our world, we combine a variety of opportunities from horse back riding and movies, to zip lining and cooking. We want folks to try a variety of things and find what works for their family. I thinking Social Cooking Groups are one of my favorite things. We partner with other non profits to create a variety a cooking groups depending on the wants and needs of each group.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Being able to laugh is on of my best qualities. I used to be so hard on myself, it was like every mistake was devastating. Now I understand no one is even close to perfect. I have been baking for 40 years and last week I made a cake that was a complete flop. I was teaching a class on ZOOM and when the cake came out of the oven I just kept laughing. When you are teaching people with autism, many of them are already hard on themselves so one of my jobs is to teach them that a mistake can be funny and we need to be as nice to ourself as we would be to someone else when they made a mistake.

I am also a good cook. I embrace that and share it. Cooking is my way of showing I care for people. Our neighbors had a small house fire and I literally handed them dinner while they were standing in their front yard. No matter what, they needed dinner and since they couldn’t go back in their house, nothing was more convenient than having it handed to you. Just being a nice human matters and unfortunately right now many people seem to struggle with it.

Being compassionate allows me to help people. I have to remember I can’t feel sorry for people because then I can’t help them. but I can put myself, temporarily, in their place and try to ask myself, “Knowing what I know now, how can I best help?”
Then the trick is to actually follow through. I think follow-through and consistency are my strengths.

The best advice I can give is…show grace, life is hard.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We love to collaborate! It helps us grow. We have considered starting a physical location kitchen for Sensory Cooking. There is a strong need for “in person” social groups. Right now most of what we do is on ZOOM, which is also great. Each serves a different population and needs. If someone would like to connect, they can reach us by phone or email both are listed in our websites.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Katie Murwin

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