A MUCH-loved Tavistock family has expressed their deepest gratitude to the community from far and wide for their donations to expand their severely autistic son’s creativity.

The Lewis family have spent 13 years campaigning for their son Paul and raising awareness of autism to a wider audience.

Paul, 17, has Autistic Spectrum Disorder and has been part of the Son-Rise Programme of America since he was four years old — a programme designed to help families enable their children dramatically to improve in all areas of learning, development, communication and skills acquisition.

Paul has, since the years have passed, made remarkable development with his vocabulary and communication skills.

His parents Allen and Sheena home-schooled Paul and have always understood that Paul’s passion revolved around technology, but it was recently that they were made aware of his talents with creating characters, especially with animated voices.

Paul was taken to Yellow Mouse Studios in Exeter where he immediately shone and started to put a voice to an animation of a blue dragon, created by Daniel Willers, owner and creative director of the studios.

In order to nurture Paul’s creative side, Allen took to social media and set up a fundraiser for £500 in order to purchase some IT equipment and a web-camera in order to create films to inspire people with autism and their families.

The call was answered within 12 hours and far exceeded what the family hoped.

Allen said: ‘We raised £535 in 12 hours and now we have £720.

‘I can’t thank everyone enough. Thanks to people’s generosity we now have his new equipment, which will mean he is able to create his own characters.

‘I think that we have found Paul’s potential. He is aware of how proud we are of his talents and now we are giving this talented human-being a chance to fulfil something that he is very gifted at. I also think he has come out even more from the secret world of autism.

‘We want to use this new equipment to inspire other families with autistic children.’