My 12 year old nephew Nicholas is a beautiful, bright, funny little boy. When he was two years old he was diagnosed with having one of the Autism Spectrum Disorders. Thankfully, early intervention has helped him tremendously. However, this is a lifetime disorder and many parents are concerned about their children’s futures.

There is an advocacy group called The Hawkeye Project. They have started a program called SOAR. SOARÂ*stands for Serve and Offer Autism Resource Initiative. It is a program that if the govt. passes, can put kids who graduate from school into a working enviroment. Right now if my nephew were to graduate, he would have almost nothing to do out in the real world as far as a job goes. Families are trying to change this.

My sister sent me this information to pass along. Since many of you are caring, community minded people to begin with, I thought I’d post this with the hope that you can take a moment to help support this very important initiative. All it takes is a few minutes on your computer.

The following link will take you to a site where you can send a pre-written message to your representative:

http://www.change.org/changes/actions/v ... t_id=16540

As many as 1 in 150 children are autistic, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That adds up to almost 1.5 million people in the United States. These kids represent future American adults and something needs to be done now to help make sure they can lead productive lives.

Hope you can help! God Bless.