A-CHAMP (Autism United) is in trouble...

[Guest guest]

I don't know if anyone can help with donations or participation in the

fundraiser or not...

Where would we be without ACHAMP?

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Please help us continue to help you.

Dear New York ACHAMP supporter,

We rarely ask our community for help, but we need your help now.

Without your support ACHAMP will be forced to stop our higly effective

advocacy for the autism community.

ACHAMP has launched a fundraising effort in conjunction with Autism

United to support our highly effective online advocacy efforts. Your

donation to the ACHAMP team participating in Autism United's Hope Walk

'08 will go directly to defray the cost of our online advocacy

efforts, and it will be 100% tax-deductible.

If you received this email that means you have also used Capwiz, our

online email system we use to barrage elected officials with messages

from our community. It is a key tool we use to both alert you about

what is going on, and to communicate with decisionmakers. It is highly

effective, but it is also expensive: $12,000 per year. Yet we have

always made Capwiz available free-of-charge to any group who shares

our values and needs help fighting for our community.

If you support ACHAMP we need you to make an online donation at our

web page: http://www.firstgiving.com/nyachamp1. You can even set up

your own fundraising page to encourage others to participate. And

everyone is invited to the Hope Walk which will be held September 28

at Belmont Lake State Park in Babylon, New York. Registration starts

at 9 the walk starts at 11, rain or shine. Take exit 38 off the

Southern State Parkway.

Last year ACHAMP joined with other advocacy groups and service

providers in New York to form Autism United (www.autismunited.org), a

coalition created to strengthen the individual advocacy efforts of the

group. The Hope Walk is Autism United's key fundraising event for the

year, and funds raised by ACHAMP teams will be used to pay for Capwiz.

One advantage that ACHAMP has is that we are a 501c4 organization,

which means we can devote all of our effort to lobbying for political

change, that's also a problem for us because contributions to ACHAMP

are not tax deductible. Contributions through the NY-ACHAMP team are

100% tax deductible. Your tax deductible contribution will assure that

this vital tool remains ready and available for our community.

We are all volunteers and we have a tiny budget, none-the-less this is

what we accomplished just in New York in the past year:

· We successfully fought and stopped former Governor Spitzer's

proposal to cut special education funding.

· We stopped a plan by New York County Executives to gut Early

Intervention Programs by transferring responsibility to local school

districts without transferring any funds to pay for them.

We stopped every new vaccine mandate proposed in New York in 2007 and

2008.

· Working with Assemblymember Marc Alessi, we got a philosophical

exemption bill introduced, Assembly Bill A5468. When we get this bill

passed New Yorkers will finally win the right to a philosophical

exemption from state vaccine mandates. You will decide, not government

officials influenced by Big Pharma money. Passing this bill will be

our #1 priority in the next legislative session beginning in January.

· We stopped A10942 the " worst vaccine bill ever " proposed in the

United States, that would have made every shot recommended by the

federal government mandatory according to the government's schedule,

including all shots for infants and toddlers,

· We stopped mandatory HPV vaccines.

· We stopped a law that would allow minors to receive HPV vaccines

without parental knowledge or consent.

· We stopped mandatory meningococcal shots.

· On July 1, the New York thimerosal bill came into effect, it is now

illegal in the state of New York to give a child under three the

standard mercury-containing flu shot. It is now illegal to give a

pregnant woman a vaccine that contains mercury above certain limits,

in effect this prohibits the use of a standard mercury containing flu

shot and 14 other vaccines in New York. ACHAMP made this law happen.

· We helped pass 's Law, and the extension of 's Law,

that allows families to get their children's records kept by state

residential facilities.

· We helped pass legislation that protects residents of state

facilities from physical abuse. Up until now it has been legal to do

anything short of permanent physical damage to this most vulnerable

population.

And this is just our accomplishments in New York, and ACHAMP is active

in all 50 states, and fighting for us in Washington, DC as well.

So please help us continue this vital work; Please make a

tax-deductible contribution at www.firstgiving.com/nyachamp1

Sincerely,

The ACHAMP Board of Directors

Anne Dachel

Gilmore

King

Krakow

Bobbie Manning

Wayne Rohde

Webster

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