We slept in this morning for the first time since our trip started last Monday, and for good reason. Last night we attended the HEAL Foundation's Valley of Dreams Gala, and what an incredible evening it was for everyone in attendance. I'm uncertain of the total amount of money raised towards the organization's goal of ultimately preventing autism spectrum disorders, but as of the end of the night, roughly $350,000 was raised.
Highlights include an onstage introduction by the night's hostess, Patty Crosby to the over 500 people in attendance. The entire audience, as well as party planner Leslie Weed were overly welcoming to our group of skaters, and we could not be any more thankful and grateful for their warmth. As an organization, we look forward to working with Leslie and HEAL in the future.
Kyle Walsh of the Jacksonville area is an incredibly talented cartoonist. Kyle is also faced with some of the challenges presented by the autism spectrum. Through the auctioning of his art, Kyle raised over $6,000 for the HEAL Foundation last night. Luckily for us as recent college graduates, and unable to afford $6,000 for a piece of work, Kyle gave each of us a copy of a RollingForAutism cartoon he drew. I know that you will be reading this Kyle, so I want you to know that I will frame and hang the drawing in my new apartment in Boston when I move in this September, and I challenge you to create a few pieces we can auction off to use in our fundraising efforts.
Mention and credit also needs to go to CARD of Jacksonville and the Little Star Center. Both are great organizations run by some very committed and talented individuals in the Jacksonville area. We look forward to working with and developing relationships with both of these organizations in the future. We are in the process of creating an information page for the website for each of the organizations we are working with and supporting along our journey.
Finally, to everyone else we met last night, thanks for the great time. We met some awesome people last night, and we hope to hear from all of you and look forward to meeting several of you again on the road this summer. Thanks for the support.
To sum up our Jacksonville experience in one word..."incredible". There really is a strong commitment towards overcoming the obstacles presented by autism spectrum disorders in this community, and if this commitment was universal, I am convinced that these challenges would no longer exist.
Speaking of challenges, we skated 40 miles yesterday....and will be skating nearly 150 miles over the next three days in some pretty nasty southern heat. We'll keep posting.
Congratulations to our two newest advisory board members, Lori Lawrimore and Mararianna McIntyre.
Cheers,
Dan T.
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When I read this earlier today, I called Kyle in and asked him to read it out loud to me. You should have heard the crack in his voice when he read his name. He was excited [for him] and thrilled the guys mentioned him on the world wide web!! "Hey that's me! The Roller guys talked about me"!! He's glad you really liked his picture! It was a pleasure to meet you all! Good luck with the rest of the tour. I hope it's as much fun as NE FL was!! Enjoy your shirts. Post when you'll be on GMAC and we'll try to make sure to watch all y'all! I'm a transplanted NY'er and I'm trying to learn the dialect! lol
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