**As seen on Global Noon Hour Hews!!
Fundraiser Start Date: June 24, 2009 Fundraiser End Date: July 24, 2009
Dear Parent and Friend,
Here is a great opportunity to help your child have easier days at home and also help our friend Katie raise funds to help her get her Autism Service Dog! Easy Daysies is a unique and practical Canadian mom/teacher invented product for children to help them have easier days! [Also, 5% of the profits from each kit go towards helping children around the world be freed from terrible bondages. (International Justice Mission).]
Easy Daysies is a great and original gift idea for any family you know! Is a birthday or celebration coming up? Great for Christmas too! Every parent and child will love using Easy Daysies! Use on a magnetic board or any magnetic surface!
Your child will learn responsibility, priorities, word recognition, while developing confidence, self-discipline, respect, and good work habits!
“Use routine to encourage good behaviour. Routine helps a [child] understand her world. When she knows what comes next, she feels more in control and it’s easier for her to cooperate. Routines are especially helpful for those transition points: getting ready for daycare, bedtime & so on.” - 10 tools for Positive Discipline, Today’s Parent Magazine (Feb. 2007, p.68)
“Easy Daysies is the handheld of pipsqueak planners. Maybe it’s the spark of the New Year ... we’re ready to get our kids organized and on schedule too. Easy Daysies is a magnetic daily planner that reminds our kiddies with key words and illustrations of what they need to … Designed by Vancouver mom and teacher, these fridge-worthy magnets help create routines for our little ones (routine equals sweet sanity). We’re stuck on these magnets…” - Stick to it, SweetMama.ca, Mar 20, 2009
Check out this great Fundraiser for Service Dog For Katie!
How it works: It’s so easy!
Visit www.easydaysies.com to place your order
VERY IMPORTANT: at the checkout screen, click on “
Add Special Instructions to Merchant” and type in “servicedogforkatie” & Katie will receive 40% of your order funds to get her Autism Service Dog!
Thank you for helping Katie!
Katie is a happy, loving 7 year old. She was born with Tetrasomy 18p which among other things, results in a developmental delay and autistic tendencies, such as a pervasive, potentially dangerous trust of strangers, a lack of social boundaries, and extreme sociability.Katie’s mom says, "It has been seven years since I slept well. I sleep with one ear open. It has been trying."Katie gets sick often and when she does she sometimes ends up in hospital, which consumes much of her mom’s time. In spite of that, Katie’s mom Lorrine, still manages to volunteer at her son’s school as well as with a disabled woman in their community. Katie’s dad, Gord, is an avionics technician with DeHavilland. Katie’s little brother Alex, is a fun-loving grade one student at Valleyfield, an inner city school in Toronto's west end.
| Thank you for your interest in helping Katie get an autism service dog. There are many ways you can help:
|   |
* Please DO NOT cut and paste text from this site and e-mail it to all of your friends. It is not our intention to be a source of e-mail spam. We do not want to have the e-mail message show up in our inbox five years from now! Practice responsible internet fundraising! Linking directly to this site makes sure that interested people always have the most recent information.
TD Canada TrustAnd the Swift code for bank wires: TDOMCATTTOR
Branch # 0193
Bank #004
Account#01935215671
katieservicedog [at] yahoo [dot] ca
Autism Dog Services*with a note saying the donation is for Katie P's service dog.
139 Hewat Street
Cambridge, Ontario
N3H 4H2
Katie touches the calm black Labrador retriever's face, hugs him tightly, then grabs a pillow and snuggles up with him for a nap.
While the seven-year-old is mesmerized by the year-old pup, her parents share her curiosity for another reason- Pepsi is an autism service dog.
The chestnut-haired girl has many autistic tendencies, such as a pervasive, potentially dangerous trust of strangers, a lack of social boundaries, and extreme sociability.
"Katie trusts and loves everybody," her mom, Lorrine, said recently in the living room of the family's home in The Westway. "She wouldn't think twice about going with anybody. In the blink of an eye, she can be gone. I can't let her go or take my eyes off her."
Katie also has a rare chromosomal abnormality called Tetrasomy18p which, like autism, causes developmental delays.
Autism is a brain development disorder that impairs the ability to communicate and interact with others. A spectrum disorder, autism varies in degrees of severity and impairment.
Recently, Lorrine and Gord, who is an aeronautics technician with DeHavilland, began fundraising to get Katie her own autism service dog to help her remain safe, and to give her some independence and companionship.
An article on autism service dogs in Exceptional Parent magazine, and numerous Internet searches later, led the family to Wade Beattie, a leading autism service dog trainer with more than 20 years experience.
Beattie founded Autism Dog Services in Cambridge, Ont., which provides families with autistic children with either golden retrievers or black labs selected for temperament, then trained to meet the specific needs of each child and family.
The dogs cost $18,000, which covers the cost of training, vet costs, a comprehensive follow-up program, and lifelong training support.
Volunteers raise and socialize the hand-picked pups for up to 18 months, then Beattie does advanced training with each dog for another five months.
"The dogs provide safety, independence and companionship for autistic children," Beattie said, the day he brought Pepsi to meet Katie and her parents. "The dogs are a calming influence in public places that are highly stimulating like malls and school. Autistic children have difficulty with social interaction and communication. The hope is the dog will bridge the gap with people and places."
Children are tethered to the dog, the leash held by a parent or guardian, to provide independence and improve safety by preventing the child from bolting into traffic.
Safety is of great concern. Katie awakens, sometimes ill, two to three times a night, five nights a week on average. Twice, she has managed to leave the house in the middle of the night.
"Katie can never, never be left alone," Lorrine said of her oldest child. The couple's son, Alex, is six. "It has been seven years since I slept well. I sleep with one ear open. It has been trying."
An autism service dog could be trained to awaken Katie's parents to her stirring.
Beattie has worked with more than 80 families with autistic children, including the Giffords in Ingersoll, Ont. Beattie trained Beau, the family's yellow Labrador retriever pup, to be an autism service dog to their son, David.
The 12-year-old boy is non-verbal and suffers from extreme anxiety.
Today, Beau accompanies David to school every day, and goes with the family on outings to the park, swimming, shopping, even to doctor's appointments. About half of Beattie's placed service dogs attend school with their children.
"The very first day Beau went to school with David full-time, David sat through the entire assembly for the first time," his mom, Kathleen, said in a recent phone interview from her home. "Transitions are very difficult for David, whether class-to-class or recess. Beau removed that for him. He redirects his focus away from the transition and lowers his anxiety."
Beau has opened David's world, and diminished his anxiety about public places, even if the bridge to socialization still awaits.
"It would be great if David didn't have any anxiety. I'd like to see more interactions. It's fine that he's going into public places, but my hope is that it could be social for David, rather than to fulfill a need, like going swimming."
Lorrine hopes for the same for her daughter.
Grocery shopping could become manageable for the family with a service dog, Lorrine said.
"I can't get many groceries because Katie is too big for the cart. If she had a dog, I could push the cart and hold the leash, and Katie could walk tethered to the dog. It would make a big difference in our lives."
HOW TO GIVE
Lorrine and Gord are raising funds to train a Labrador retriever as an autism service dog for their daughter, Katie. The seven-year-old has developmental delays caused by autistic-like tendencies, and a rare chromosome abnormality called Tetrasomy 18p.
An autism service dog costs approximately $18,000, which covers the cost of training customized to a child and family's needs and lifelong support.
To donate, visit the family's website www.tetrasomy18p.ca/katieservice.html or email katieservicedog [at] yahoo [dot] ca
Posts
