A sensory room is a place where kids can utilize sensory activities to help regulate themselves, said Kris Chapman, director of special education for East Lansing public schools. Different children will have different uses for the room, though, she said.

“Some kids need (input) to slow down, some kids need it to rev up,” she said. “It should be a calming, soothing place for them to go to.”

A bare-boned sensory room costs about $3,000, Evangelista said, but their goal was to raise between $4,000 and $8,000.

“You can keep going and going with them — they can have trapezes, balance beams, so many sensory things,” she said.

Any money they raise that exceeds what Pinecrest needs will go to the other East Lansing schools, Evangelista said. As of their jump time, they had raised between $5,000 and $6,000.

The sensory room has already been painted, and is being prepared to become part of the school this fall, said Cynthia Blakeslee, principal of Pinecrest Elementary.

“What I did was move (one of the programs that) had an office space in the cafeteria,” she said. “We decided they could move that out to the portable, and we could free up that space for the sensory room.”

Currently, the East Lansing Public Schools focus on teaching special needs children self-regulation in their classrooms, Chapman said.

“That way, they start to self-regulate and identify when they have needs — whether in the classroom, in the middle of a grocery store, or on public transportation, they can do these things,” she said.

Each child also receives an individualized sensory “diet,” or amount of sensory information, which the school system determines in conjunction with an occupational therapist, Chapman said.

Evangelista started planning the fundraiser around Memorial Day weekend, when she ran a half-marathon with Whitmer, who she became good friends with through training for the race.

“I said I was going to raise money for it, and Gretchen was totally 100 percent on board with supporting me,” she said. “(And) I thought that jumping out of an airplane was the perfect sensory experience … we all have challenges, we all have demons we have to face, I’ll lead by example.”

Whitmer said she was compelled by Evangelista’s story and her optimism, and wanted to help create awareness for the problem.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of different causes with kids, but not with autism,” she said. “But it’s becoming so much more frequent — almost one in 50 are diagnosed with some form of it.”

Ann Dingens, Evangelista’s sister-in-law, said that it was neat of Evangelista to pick skydiving, because her jumping out of a plane is similar to what Evangelista’s son, Everett, experiences daily.

“An example is if I asked (someone) to remember a grocery list, and was pounding drums and screaming while (they) were trying to do it — it’s like what Everett experiences every day,” she said. “It’s sensory overload.”

The jump was beyond awesome, Evangelista said after she landed.

“It was the most amazing, unbelievable experience ever,” she said. “It exceeded my expectations by multitudes — I’m sure when I have more time to take it in, I’ll be completely floored.”