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13 October 2009
Posted in
6) Fall Health, Naturally
The fall is a busy season for health-related charities.
October is both Autism Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Find out more about both to follow and how you can help out now, next week or next year…
And see SHYM (Supportive Housing for Young Mothers) - below ... late addition to our Health & Charities article with link to their on-line auction fundraiser ending Nov. 30th. So buy now and help them reach their fundraising goal!
Breast Cancer Awareness Month & ‘TASTE for the Cure’
This year, CRUSISIS Sustainable Living entered a team into the event: Team CRUSISIS.ca. It’s our 1st year doing so and we’re fumbling our way through the process. But we’re excited and folks have already expressed interest in coming back again next year to do it.
We’ve been asked why we picked the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation as a beneficiary for our efforts and fund raising event since we are an organization that focuses on sustainable living and since they are a cause that is already so well supported? The question is best answered by first defining our version of ‘sustainability’.
Our version of ‘sustainability includes looking at the health of ‘People’, ‘Planet’ and ‘Community’. The Run for the Cure is a very inspiring event in which we’d participated in the past. Many of our members are women, and have been touched in some way by the disease. Then we dreamt up “TASTE for the Cure: a Sampling of Local Flavors” in an effort to further tie in the aspects of eco-friendly local living. And we felt it was a perfect combination of a healthy, earth-friendly, local, team event and fundraising effort, which also helps promote health to a greater local and global community as well, and overall 'sustainable' endeavour.
Breast cancer and talk about it has become so commonplace that we tend to become desensitized to the fact that it is a disease. Just because the Foundation does an amazing jog at marketing Run for the Cure, doesn’t mean it’s not a cause that still needs help. Statistically, there are still thousands of women diagnosed with the disease every year and thousands of women who die from it.
Contact us if you want to be a part of Team CRUSISIS.ca next year or donate to or help out with our fundraising efforts. Do I hear “TASTE for the Cure”… 1st annual!!??
Canadian Autism Awareness Month (CAAM) & Autism Golf Ball
We feel the need to say we haven’t mixed up the dates. Unlike in the USA where it is celebrated in April, in Canada, Autism Awareness Month is indeed celebrated in October as CAAM. In fact, you can find out more about it on the Autism Society of Canada’s (ASC) website: www.autismsocietycanada.ca.
Autism has a spectrum, which is why it is becoming more widely known as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). What this means in simplistic terms is that people with autism have varying areas of challenge or atypical behaviour. For some people on the spectrum, certain challenges may be very intense, yet for the same person, some atypical bahaviours may be less intense, or vice-versa. And from person to person, the challenges or atypical behaviours, as well as their intensity, also varies. Thus, it is a spectrum, which society still struggles to fully understand and treat.
Sadly, in Halifax, the currently believed most effective early intervention treatment program, EIBI, is allocated to people on the spectrum by winning a lottery… literally, your name is drawn from a pool every so often when the program has space. It is this way in many areas in Canada, which is why some families afflicted have flocked to Winnipeg, where the treatment is available for all who are eligible for the program.
On a happier note, there are fabulous people doing wonderful things in Halifax for Autism; overall awareness of it; and helping those families living with it. The PAC (Provincial Autism Center) is hosting its 5th annual Autism Golf Ball. If you haven’t attended the event in the past, it is a must as it is definitely not your typical ‘rubber chicken’ experience!
Whether it’s Breast Cancer, Autism, or any other worthy health-related organization, be sure to learn more about it and see how you can help promote better health through charities.
… late addition ot our Fall Guide!!
SHYM & On-Line Auction Fundraiser (Nov. 30th, '09)
SHYM (Supportive Housing for Young Mothers at www.shym.ca) has been getting a lot of attention lately, especially as the benefactor of net proceeds from the Turbine 2009 Showcase, among other things. A friend recently emailed information to us about the on-line auction they are having, so we thought we add it to our Fall Guide in hopes of helping them raise more money and also in hopes you’ll be able to snag yourself a great deal on-line in time for the Holidays. Here are the details:
“We are trying to raise $10,000 and count on people like you to do some online shopping over the next month. The auction ends at the beginning of December so shop early and often! (http://www.realauction.ca/shym/en/) And please, please circulate this email broadly. We need lots of people to know about the auction and check out the fabulous items available!!”
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