Eight more weeks to go to my very first RUN FOR AUTISM (hopefully not my last one), 8 more weeks to train, and 8 more weeks to achieve my fundraising goal of $500 that can help Organization Autism Research to increase autism awareness and promote autism acceptance and understanding in our community.

Eugene is 10 and still in Special Education with one on one aide helping him throughout the day at school, which put my mind at ease in terms of bullying or being taken advantage of. At least when there is someone with him most of the time, other kids will think twice if they want to do “silly” things.

Eugene goes to PE with his general education peers twice a week. From time to time, I got reports how the Gen Ed kids tried to get Eugene involved in their PE games and most of the time Eugene responded well, he would run with them, let them hold his hand to guide him, and he seems to enjoy this companionship. This kind of reports put tears in my eyes, caught me by surprise how these youngsters have big hearts not to discriminate against their special needs friends. This kind of acceptance is the one we need in our society, not only at school level, but our community at large.

Have I not had autistic kid, I probably would not have cared or even had high tolerance on “misbehave” kids. It was just so sad how we, as society, have minimal understanding of autism and minimal acceptance of people behaving “abnormal”. Yes, I am talking about myself back then.

Therefore, I am joining Run for Autism to raise awareness and acceptance by starting small through schools where these youngsters started to learn about accepting differences. My goal of $500 will probably only reach few schools, but at least we get to start at some point.

Here are some of the ways that OAR uses the funds raised by the RUN FOR AUTISM team:
• $10 provides a Curriculum in a Box professional development set to general education teachers.
• $25 provides 15 copies of A Guide to Safety to families and first responders.
• $100 provides the Kit for Kids peer education resource to an entire elementary or middle school.
• $150 provides 100 copies of a Life Journey through Autism guidebook sent to a community support group or military installation.