On Sunday, April 27, The Imagine Walk – for Autism was held at Goddard Memorial Park where several thousand participants filled the park. The Autism Project conducts the annual fundraiser to help families with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The rate of children diagnosed with ASD has increased alarmingly (per the CDC) from 1 in 68 in 2015 to 1 in 36 today. For parents of a child on the spectrum, it is a life time commitment of caring and support that extends even beyond the parent’s life time. The Autism Project has been a local leader in helping families with ASD deal with a host of difficult and often unique challenges of children on the spectrum.
Bristol Rotary has been a supporter of The Autism Project (TAP) since 2015, when they teamed up with TAP to raise over $70,000 to create an East Bay Support Center. The Center was established to help what was estimated to be over 2000 families affected by ASD in the East Bay - out of an estimated 10,000 families in Rhode Island. With the arrival of Covid, the money for the Support Center was used to develop online lectures, interactive family sessions and subject specific videos that have been used to provide assistance, not only to the East Bay, but also nationwide and internationally.
For the second year in a row, Bristol Rotary has been proud to be the top donor to the Imagine Walk fundraiser. Please donate at theautismproject.org or to bristolrotary.com (Help us Help others).
Below, L-R: Maria Cesario, Treasurer of Bristol Rotary’s Charities Foundation (BRCF), Joanne Quinn, Executive Director of The Autism Project (TAP), Jonathan Roderick, Board Chair TAP, and Bruce Cox, President of BRCF.
