Hello!  Welcome to my fundraising page!

I am training for the Grand Rapids Half Marathon (13.1 miles) on October 20, 2019. I am dedicating this run, and all of the training, to autism awareness and research.  I am raising money for the Organization for Autism Research (OAR).  I have promised to raise $1,310.00 for them.

My life was first touched by autism when my son Joshua was diagnosed at age 3.  It was a very difficult and shocking time, even though deep down, I knew that the diagnosis was coming.  There are a lot of emotions that come along with finding out your child will have some struggles for the rest of his life.  There were, and still are, many unanswered questions.  After many years of research and finding acceptance of our situation, Josh has grown into a smart, funny, and happy 15 year old.  (Well, most of the time, he is in a lot of ways a typical teenager.  That has enormous struggles of its own!)  He has finished his first year of high school and it was the best school year he's had yet!  He even joined stage crew in the theater department and he loves it.

Organizations like OAR help provide support to people who can help us learn more about autism.

I started running over 20 years ago.  I'm very excited that I can pair two of my passions, running and autism!  I am looking forward to dedicating each training run to my son, and all those touched by autism.

The impact you help OAR make:

1 in 68 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism.

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.
• $30,000 fully underwrites an applied research pilot study.

Thank you for your interest and I hope you will consider donating to this worthy charity.

Tracy