On October 8, 2023 I'll block up traffic here in lovely Chicago in order to run my first marathon, initially for no other reason than to prove I could. Now, instead, I'm using the experience to raise funds for the Organization for Autism Research. OAR’s mission is to fund research and resources that help people with autism and their families. You can find out more about them at researchautism.org. Alternately, you can find out more by continuing to read, right here, in the manner in which you have done so far (great job on that, by the way!).

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.
$1,000 provides a research grant for a graduate student studying autism.
$3,000 provides a scholarship for a student with autism to attend college.
$40,000 fully underwrites an applied research pilot study.

(Oh, and that handsome cat is Demo while that handsome-in-his-own-way jellyfish is Turritopsis dohrnii, aka the immortal jellyfish. They are both my spirit animals.)