Would you like to assist with NATIONWIDE walk for Autism?

[Guest guest]

All:

We met so many of you wonderful folks last week at the AutismOne

conference in Chicago and look forward to meeting more of you this

week at the rally in Washington DC! You all are the best and you are

in our prayers every night. Hopefully our little guy's legacy will

be as many recovered children as possible. God willing, we will

achieve that goal. In case you aren't aware, 2 friends of ours are

making a nationwide journey to raise funds and awareness for

Autistic families.

The press is just now starting to pick up on it as the walk started

in San Francisco and will conclude in Washington DC. The walk will

go along Route 50. The 2 walkers are currently (as of June 1) in

Nevada now and have already been on the news with the first lady of

Nevada:

http://www.krnv.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?

ClipID1=2542529

http://firstlady.state.nv.us/PhotoGallery/2008-

05AutismWalkEliasTembenis.htm

http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8402760

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24896626

ABCNEWS.com will also be picking up the story of their journey in

July at the following link:

http://abcnews.go.com/health

This walk is being done completely grassroots and Spartan i.e. 2

men walking across the country with just backpacks. They are doing

this to raise as much awareness and funds for 'our children'.

If you would like to assist you may do any of the following:

1) Pray ... pray for the safety of the walkers, pray for 'our kids'

and the parents who love them so and would do anything for them, and

also pray for our little guy up in Heaven who we miss so much.

2) Network ... feel free to forward this onto anyone you may see

fit... friends, family, loved ones, business contacts, unions,

fraternal organizations, media,politicians, etc. The more people we

unite, the better.

3) Donate ... if possible , given these tough economic times you may

donate in any amount you wish, from as little as $1. You can do so

at the following link:

http://www.firstgiving.com/eliasdad

If you can donate...GREAT! If not, no problem ...but please do pray

and network,though.

For those unfamiliar with our son's story and how this walk came

about, please read the next few paragraphs.

In any event, we look forward to seeing and meeting as many of you

as possible at the walk this week. God Bless & Jim for putting

this together and TACA for all their efforts, too!

Best Regards,

Harry &

Here is an internet radio segment which details the walk:

http://www.autismone.org/radio/default.cfm?archive=6060 & bg= & FromA1

Click on the link above, hit the play button (right facing triangle

below advertisement).

Interview lasts appx 10 minutes.

A little history on how the walk came about...

Sadly, we lost our little 7 year old son the Saturday before

Thanksgiving, 2007:

http://currentobituary.com/ShowObit.aspx?id=43257 & member_id=4

Immediately following our son's unfortunate passing, we were

approached by 2 friends of the family who were deeply impacted by

our loss. They offered to walk across America in our son's name in

order to raise money & awareness for autism, of which our son was

diagnosed. The only caveat is that they requested we find a charity

who would use the funds raised for grants to autistic families. Upon

researching this for our friends, my wife and I came upon the

National Autism Association's Helping Hand program:

http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/helpinghand.php

…which fit their requirements to the letter! Upon finding the

appropriate charity, we went back to our friends to see if they were

still up for the walk. They were! They decided to do a combination

walk across America utilizing the American Discovery Trail and Route

50 which began in mid-May 2008 (from San Francisco, CA to

Washington, DC):

http://www.discoverytrail.org

http://www.route50.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:US_50_map.png

We approached the National Autism Association about the idea and

they were floored; so much so that they were willing to rename the

Helping Hand Program to The Elias Tembenis Walk for Autism for the

duration of the walk:

http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/eliaswalk/index.htm

With Autism currently effecting 1 in every 150 children in the

United States, if you take the current 1.7 million diagnosed

children, factor in 2 sets of parents, 2 sets of grandparents and

the 5 teachers/therapists/aides a child requires every year, that

factors out to 68,000,000 people impacted by autism out of a total

US population of 300,000,000… 22% of the population! Basically an

autism diagnosis is given every 20 minutes.

As you all know, the costs of autism are astronomical:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2006-

releases/press04252006.html

So hopefully this will help offset some of the costs to the families

most in need. The more money raised, the more money can be

distributed!

The mainstream media has also started to pick up the story:

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/walking-across-america-for-autism-

two/n20080516111709990023

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS167014+14-Apr-

2008+PRN20080414

Spectrum Magazine, a nationwide magazine for families with Autism

will be profiling the walk in their June issue:

http://spectrumpublications.com (the website should be updated

soon to reflect the story)

If any corporate donors want to sponsor the walkers, they may do so

at the following link:

http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/eliaswalk/proposal.pdf

God Bless you all.

Upon conclusion, the walkers hope to walk into the White House and

shake hands with the new President, whoever he/she may be and

state " This is what we did for Autism, now what will YOU do for

Autism? "