Your school, district, or organization can earn specialized training on Autism Spectrum Disorders for your educators by participating in The Autism Project’s 10th Annual Imagine Walk and Family Fun Day for Autism!
- To participate, you, your school or district/organization must pre-register as a team
- To pre-register, please email mary@theautismproject.org
- Teams may consist of families, children and professionals
- Your families may apply their Imagine Walk sponsor pledges to their district/organization or individual school
- Each team must designate a team leader
- All families and professionals who want to apply their pledges to their school must complete the School/School district/organization portion of the pledge form to ensure proper credit
- Forms without complete information may not receive proper credit
- If your school or district/organization is located outside of the Rhode Island area, certain restrictions may apply
- All sponsorship forms will be available for distribution the first week of February. Please contact the Autism Project to order Sponsor sheets in February.
- To participate all pledges must be turned into our office by April 29, 2012
- All participants in the Community Challenge must provide their own team t-shirts
- Trainings will be scheduled by the end of the following school year. All trainings must be scheduled by June 2013.
- Cannot carry over training spots earned from previous years.
- Winners will be notified in writing
Champion
$10,000.00
Schools or organizations that participate in the Imagine Walk and Family Fun Day for Autism and raise a minimum of $10,000 will receive a district wide training for 30 professionals. The “A Starting Point” training is a comprehensive nine week series designed to educate parents and professionals working with a child with an autism spectrum disorder. Participants completing the series earn 18 Continuing Education Unit hours from the Department of Education. We are also able to offer
MSW credits for this training.
Star
$8,000.00
Schools or Organizations that raise a minimum of $8000.00 will receive a five week specialized training program called “Aspire” for 30 professionals to address the unique learning styles of children with Asperger Syndrome. This training will include Introduction to Social Thinking, a two –hour training, which gives participants an understanding of the concept of Social Thinking and how a deficit in Social thinking can affect academic performance, daily living and overall happiness and success. Participants completing the series can earn 10 CEU hours. We are also able to offer MSW credits for this training.
Sponsor
$1,500.00
Schools or organizations that raise a minimum of $1,500.00 will receive one free professional training slot for Aspire or A Starting Point. Aspire will include our two-hour training, Introduction to Social Thinking. You can earn one free training for each increment of $1,500 raised. For example, if your school raises $3,000, you will earn 2 free training spots!
It's Easy to Start a Team!
- First: designate a Team Leader (or captain) and select a team name.
- The next step is to pre-register, you may pre-register by contacting Mary@theautismproject.org or you may register your team on line, at www.firstgiving.com/autismproject .Please ensure that each team competing for your district/school enters the school/district name as the team organization name. This way their totals will be combined under your team as well.
- Please note: to be eligible to receive our training, your team must be registered prior to our event.
- The “Firstgiving” fundraising tool is a great and simple way to reach out to family and friends for donations for your team. It allows you to create your own personalized fundraising webpage, tell your story, include photos and send emails to generate support for your team. . It’s fast and easy. If you have questions, call Julie at 401-785-2666 x 1004 for help. Visit www.firstgiving.com/AutismProject
- The Autism Project will provide you with brochures. We also have posters available which will be given out on a first come-first serve basis.
- Extra brochures are also available at UPS Store locations throughout Rhode Island as well as through downloading them here Autism Project Imagine Walk Brochure 2012.
- Ask permission to make up signs at work/school.
- Set a positive example-ask the principal and the staff of the school to join your team. Ask the PTO to highlight the walk at their next meeting remind the PTO President of the fact that participating in this event can directly benefit your school. Here is a link to our School Contest Letter
- Set a recruitment and fundraising goal.
- Ask the PTO/Principal if the school can host an event to raise money for the walk. A dress down day, bake sale, car wash, dance, movie night etc.
- Ask local businesses to support your effort by hosting a night where a percentage of proceeds will benefit your school team. We have a list of business that will offer these fundraisers to your organization.
- Another way to raise money for your team is through a letter writing campaign. Write a letter explaining your involvement with the Autism Project and how the programs will benefit the children in your school. Ask if you can pass out this information to each student to bring home. This is an easy way to raise funds and alleviates the uncomfortable face to face solicitation. If you don’t want to mail letters, you can send out an email. If your life has been touched by this disorder you will be overwhelmingly surprised by the response this letter or email will elicit.
- Encourage students, family members and friends to sign up others for your team.
- Have t-shirts for your team-that features the person or school you are walking for: there are many places to buy them, Job lot, Michaels, AC Moore, and Joanne Fabrics have inexpensive shirts where you could use an iron on transfer. We also have a list of outside vendors you can purchase t-shirts from. Please contact The Autism Project for a list of vendors.
- Keep the Momentum Going!
- Get the word out! Encourage the involvement of your team by utilizing newsletters, e-mail, incentives, PTO involvement and group activities. Put up posters, hand out flyers or send an e-mail.
- For your convenience, community/school challenge participants can arrange to visit our office to obtain food tickets and drop off donations during the week prior to the walk.
- Funds can alsol be turned in the day of the event. Please make a note on all checks in the memo line of the team name/school. It is advisable to convert all cash to checks if you are planning to hand in the money at the walk itself to ensure proper team credit towards the community challenge.
- Organize a meeting place for all your team members to meet at the walk. You may want to make a sign with your team name on it. Please contact mary@theautismproject.org to obtain a map of the park.
- Have fun and take plenty of pictures!
- The Autism Project will send out thank you letters for all donations over $75.00. If your walkers need letters for their taxes please have them send in checks payable to the Autism Project with the team name clearly designated on the memo line of each check submitted. This will enable us to accurately determine your total team contribution. Each team that raises more than $75.00 will also receive a thank you letter from The Autism Project.
- You can also send out a personal thank you note or email to your team members, telling them how much you raised.
- Submit your team picture for your school newsletter, submit to the local paper, email it to mary@theautismproject.org.
- The team captain will be notified if your team has earned free training.
We are proud to announce that to date more than 433 educators from 23 school districts in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and nearby Connecticut have earned free autism training for their teachers by raising funds for this event. You can too! Thank you for supporting our organization and your willingness to Imagine.
For more info, call Mary or Julie at 401-785-2666 x 1023.