Hello Everyone!

It is that time of year again….time to get ready for my Disney World 5K race for Autism Speaks. This year’s race theme is retro Disney. This means they are celebrating the 1990’s! Some of these themes that are important to me are Ducktales and Darkwing Duck. Colleen likes the movies of 90’s like Mulan, Aladdin, and Pocahontas. We love the characters and are excited to dress up as Mushu and Drawing Duck!

This theme got me to thinking about Autism and what it was like for people like me in the 1990’s. Mom helped me do some research, and here is what we found. Back in the 90’s the way to diagnose Autism was very strict. That meant that people who had severe Autism would be receive treatment and special help in special schools and programs. But, people with mild Autism, like me, we would have flown under the radar and that they would not have gotten help in school. These people had a hard time learning and had a hard time getting jobs as adults.

For me, that would have very stressful and hard. Fortunately, I was in school in the 2000’s and things had changed. I had help from aides, there were special classes for me and some even gave me 2 years to work on regents. Without these classes, I would have never gotten interested in history, music, or photography. In fact, my high school music teacher and her family have become best friends and are joining me in the race for the 3rd time! Music is very important to me because it helps calm me down and it inspires my artwork and stories. One of my other favorite high school classes was photography. I love to get creative with my pictures and use photoshop and lightroom. My mom and I are even trying to start a photography business where I sell my pictures as notecards online.

I am running to support Autism Speaks because in 2022 they are trying to give those with autism jobs. In the U.S there are about 5 million people diagnosed with Autism but only 1 million of those actually have jobs. To help with this problem, Autism Speaks started the Connector Challenge. It connects people with autism with businesses. They are trying to educate the business on how to change application processes so that autistic people can have a better chance of getting jobs.

I am asking you, to support me and Autism Speaks by donating to my race page. You can search TeamUp Autism Speaks, click on find team and my race team name is Robbie Runs 2023, then click on donate. This is the address if you are doing this from an email.

I am also attaching a copy of the form if you want to mail in a donation.

Thank you for reading this letter and helping me with my cause.

Love,

Robbie McKennett