At SAY, every program is offered free or on a pay-what-you-can basis, thanks to supporters like you. As you’ll read below, the impact is enormous. Facing federal funding cuts, SAY needs your support this summer—make a gift today to ensure every young voice is heard.
Here’s a story of the life-changing impact your support makes possible:
“Four seconds of silence is all it takes for the average person to feel uncomfortable.
That equates to four heartbeats, one whole breath, four ticks before the listener’s chest has tensed. Four seconds is all it takes to break the momentum of a conversation.
I’m 9, and the first syllable of my idea makes its way into the class discussion. My classmates look at me, confused. So does the teacher. I am alone. I am met with crooked necks, with laughter, with a weight too heavy to hold. Mid-sentence, I decide what I have to say is not worth breaking the momentum of the conversation.
I add these thoughts gingerly to my scrapbook of lost ideas, the wallpaper of my mind. I’m 10, and I’m stepping into a studio full of people from SAY, then called Our Time. I’m quiet, nervous, and apprehensive. No one deserves to see my wallpaper, the ideas I’d rather bury than be heard stuttering.
But in that studio, something was happening that I had never experienced, and it only took a few weeks for me to soften. Four seconds of silence, here at SAY, was filled with tender attention. The time in that studio became precious to me, not because it was fleeting, but because I finally felt that I could do whatever I wanted with each second. I was insistent to my mom that we had to arrive early. I couldn’t miss a moment of freedom.
I’m 16, and I’m getting hired to present my poetry. At this point, I am performing in front of hundreds of people, including at the SAY Benefit Gala, at my school, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I’m 18, and I’m publishing my first book through SAY’s Storytelling Project. My scrapbook of lost ideas is out.
My story as a person who stutters is not one of reaching fluency or learning how to manage my stuttering. Mine is not a story of choosing silence. I made my voice loud for the sake of the little girl who would rather swallow her ideas than let her classmates hear her stutter.
I graduated from college with honors in May 2025. I’m a Fulbright semi-finalist. And I’m on my way to an Ivy League for my graduate studies in International Affairs.
Though eighty million people worldwide stutter, so much of the world still hasn’t learned how to listen to us. And why would I conform myself to a world where people go unheard and unnoticed?
The answer: I don’t. SAY taught me that I did not have to.
Amidst the chaos of this world, I still find my footing every Saturday at SAY—now as a Teaching Artist. I get to work with the most resilient, inspiring kids who stutter. I look back on the vulnerability, the pain, the loneliness, the fear that that 9-year-old met with laughter in her classroom felt. And from where I stand now, I know something important: the pain in that girl is what’s on the other side of the empowered confidence that she will build—that we all build, together, in this extraordinary community.
My stutter has taught me that there is power in being different. There is no chase for freedom; I am free.“
We are endlessly inspired by Lexi’s story.
She empowers the next generation so they, too, can reach their full potential and thrive. You can do the same.
At SAY, every program is offered free or pay-what-you-can. They are costly to provide, but create an out-sized impact in stories like Lexi’s.
Join us in building this world together. No child should be sidelined because of how they speak or what their family can afford.
SAY underwrites over $2 million in program costs every year—but we can only do this with you. These are challenging times for nonprofits: in May 2025, SAY’s 17-year federal funding partnership was canceled due to shifting government priorities.
Make a gift today to ensure every young person feels heard and valued.
A contribution in any amount will help change a life.