We will be having our Walk Kick Off meeting during the regularly scheduled support group on February 6th.  The 2012 Walk Committee Chairpersons will be sharing where we are in the planning process for the 2012 event and they will be recruiting volunteers to help complete their teams.  Are you a spreadsheet guru?  Do you know how to drive a car?  Are you a marketing genius?  Do you have community connections?  Are you an excellent envelope stuffer?  We need you!  All of you you!  We need all kinds of expertise so don’t be intimidated.  You don’t have to be able to donate hours of your time…we get it…we all have busy lives!  But if everyone pitches in a little bit that we can avoid having a handful of people experience the burn out that comes from planning such a big event.

If you are not able to attend the kick off meeting but you want to help serve your community please email us at omahasupportgroup@autismnebraska.org

Omaha: 

Chalco Hills Recreation Area encompasses Wehrspan Lake and is home to approximately 6 miles of trail that encircles the lake and weaves through picnic areas, soccer fields, and playgrounds scattered around the park.  The Autism Puzzle Walk is held at the Natural Resouce Center building and that entrance is off of 154th and Giles. 

If coming from west of Omaha –>  Take I-80 to Exit 440. Turn left onto Highway 50 also known as 144th Street.  You will then drive North on 144th Street for about 1 mile.  Turn left onto Giles Road.  Proceed about 1 mile and then turn left into Chalco Hills Recreation Area on what would be 154th Street.  You will see balloons marking the entrance and we will have some signs along the road directing you toward the Autism Walk.

If coming from east Omaha –>  Take I-80 to Exit 440. Turn right onto Highway 50 also known as 144th Street.  You will then drive North on 144th Street for about 1 mile.  Turn left onto Giles Road.  Proceed about 1 mile and then turn left into Chalco Hills Recreation Area on what would be 154th Street.  You will see balloons marking the entrance and we will have signs along the road directing you toward the Autism Walk.

North Platte:

Cody Park in North Platte is home to a collection of animals, picnic areas and a collection of children’s rides, including a restored antique carousel with hand carved horses.   The address is 211 West 3rd Street.

If coming from I-80  –>  Turn north heading into North Platte.   This is Jeffers Street.   Jeffers Street branches off into Dewey for a few blocks and then merges back into Jeffers. Continue north over the viaduct and Cody Park will be visible from Jeffers Street just past 12th Street.  If you have any questions for the North Plate walk you can call Becky at 308-532-3132.

Remember last year and the long registration lines?  Yeah, so do we!  We have a few changes this year that we think are going to work like magic!  But…we need your help to make it all work smoothly!

1.   Put yourself in the FASTPASS line by registering online at www.firstgiving.com/asn.  (by 8pm tonight)

2.   If you have money to turn in at the walk please help us credit you and your team by having it in an envelope with a donation log already completed.  You can download a donation log HERE.

3.   Not already registered?  Don’t worry!  You can still register at the walk!  But you can save yourself time Saturday morning by filling out the paperwork ahead of time.   Download registration forms HERE.

Once you arrive to the Natural Resource Center at Chalco you will find the room color coded!  So what color are you?  Here is how you know where to go…

I need to register   –>  REPORT TO THE BLUE REGISTRATION TABLES

We are all already registered and…

I have cash/check donations to turn in  –>  REPORT TO THE YELLOW REGISTRATION TABLES

All of my donations were online  –>   REPORT TO THE RED REGISTRATION TABLES

I don’t have any donations –>  REPORT TO THE RED REGISTRATION TABLE

And don’t worry if you still aren’t sure where to go!  We’ll be there to guide you!  See you tomorrow!

Well, guess what!

Bring your dollar bills and you still might have a chance! We will be having a raffle to win an iPad2!

 Autism Society of Nebraska’s

AUTISM PUZZLE WALK

 Saturday, April 30, 2011

Click here for details on the Omaha Autism Puzzle Walk

Click here for details on the North Platte Autism Puzzle Walk

and

Congrats to the Grand Island Support Group on their successful Walk on April 10th!

 Open call for Volunteers! 

The Autism Walk is an amazing event but that is due to the amazing hard work of our troop of volunteers.  We’ve had a crew working for months pulling it all together.   And now we need some more recruits!   We are putting an open call out for volunteers who might like to help us behind the scenes during the walk. 

set up / tear down / registration  / food /

supervision of bounce houses / supervision of games 

If interested please email autismsociety@autismnebraska.org for more information!

New this year are incentive prizes to help inspire walkers to fundraise for the cause.  

          Raise $50 and receive an Autism Bracelet.

          Raise $125 and receive an Autism Bracelet, and a BPA-Free Water Bottle

Raise $250 and receive an Autism Bracelet, a BPA-Free Water Bottle, and Swimtastic Family Swim Pass (for either Lincoln or Omaha locations).

Raise $500 and receive an Autism Bracelet, a BPA-Free Water Bottle, Swimtastic Family Swim Pass, and a 2011 Autism Puzzle Walk Sweatshirt (mailed to you post walk)

Raise $1000 and receive an Autism Bracelet, a BPA-Free Water Bottle, Swimtastic Family Swim Pass, a 2011 Autism Puzzle Walk Sweatshirt (mailed to you post walk), and a $25 gift card to an area business.

AND…

Top Individual Fundraiser gets an iPad!

2nd Place earns an iPod Touch

3rd Place receives 2 Husker Football Tickets!

AND…

The team with the most registered walkers will begin the walk for us!

Join  the Omaha Support Group at Pump It Up for a fantastic night of bouncing!

Free admission to everyone who pre-registers for the Autism Puzzle Walk

AND creates a personal fundraising page!

Are you not registered yet?

Don’t have a fundraising page?

Do computers intimidate you?

No problem!  We’ll help you get it done! We will have computers and helpers to walk you through the registration process!

Bring money for your walk registration fees —$15 adult/ $5 12 and under—and bounce for free!  Plus you’ll be ablet to bypass some of the registration process at the walk!

Not registering for the walk?  You can still come and bounce at $5 a child!

Pump It Up
960 S 72nd Street
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Three cheers to Milio’s of Omaha for becoming a Champion for the Autism Society! Drop in at their sandwich shop at 14440 F Street for some delicious food AND donate your spare change to the Autism Society!  

Do you know anyone else willing to become a Champion? Email us at autismsociety@autismnebraska.org

 (Special thanks to our talented community artist….Genisa Neal for her handcrafted puzzle boxes!)

 Saturday, April 30, 2011

Chalco Hills Recreation Area
154th & Giles Road
Omaha

9:00am - 12:00pm

JOIN US FOR A FREE CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST, BOUNCE HOUSES,
FACE PAINTING AND FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!

GET REGISTERED ONLINE TODAY!

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

INCENTIVE PRIZES

GET YOUR PARTICIPANT GUIDE HERE

CAN’T COME? SIGN UP AS A VIRTUAL WALKER!

UNABLE TO REGISTER ONLINE?  DOWNLOAD A REGISTRATION FORM HERE

 DOWNLOAD A DONATION FORM HERE

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

INTERESTED IN BEING A CORPORATE SPONSOR?

Want a video to spotlight on your fundraising page?   Let us help you!  We have video submissionscreated by our community for you to use!  Please feel free to use any of them on your own personal fundraising page!  And thank you to everyone who helped share their journey!

WATCH THE “AUTISM IS A JOURNEY” VIDEO SUBMISSIONS HERE 

We asked our community to share their journey with us through a short video. Wow! Thank you everyone for your wonderful masterpieces!

Now Autism Puzzle Walkers when you create your walk fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/asn you can pick your favorite journey to share on your own personal page. We’ve saved you the work of having to create your own video!

It is truly easy to link the video onto your firstgiving page. Copy and paste the line of code directly below your choice of video and put it into your Firstgiving page where they ask for “the web address of your youtube video”.

A MOTHER’S JOURNEY

ENTER THIS CODE –>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bf-Z1oih-A

A SIBLING’S PERSPECTIVE

ENTER THIS CODE –>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7tFFMYVTqw

A FAMILY’S PORTRAYAL

ENTER THIS CODE –>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4DYr81lQZM

SISTERS SHARING THEIR JOURNEY

ENTER THIS CODE –>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwDWvWF-EpA

SOPHIA’S JOURNEY

ENTER THIS CODE –>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiJUZq6352w

A COMMUNITY COMING TOGETHER

ENTER THIS CODE –>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xboV9mOUIMk

Please join us for a night of fun with dancing, door prizes, and contests while raising money for the Autism Society of Nebraska.  This event is open to all ages and will be a family friendly evening.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Adults: $5
Children 12 and under: $3

Please spread the word to friends, family, co-workers!  Download a flyer HERE!

**And on behalf of ASN, I want to thank the UNO NSSLHA group for all of their tremendous support!   This is an amazing group who has been an amazing support for the Omaha autism community!

Let’s come out and show our appreciation on April 15th.  This is a win-win!  They are creating a fun family night AND all proceeds will come back to the ASN Autism Puzzle Walk

By the way, we love our walk logo and we LOVE that it came from you!

Who better to speak for our community…than our community! 

The 2011 Autism Puzzle Walk is getting closer.  Can you feel the excitement?  We are putting the finishing touches on the brochures, posters and tweaking our web site.  Soon we’ll be asking you to register for the event and encouraging you to build your online fundraising pages.  Every year we have had an Autism Puzzle walk video made available to help personalize the fundraising pages.  We’ve included autism statistics and photos from our community to try and put a face to our cause.  

But we asked ourselves…why only one video?  Why not present several options to our participants?  After all, we all have our stories to share about this journey!  So we are putting a call out to YOU…the autism community!  Please tell us the story of your journey! 

Please create a 2-4 minute video showing what supporting the Autism Puzzle Walk means to you and your family!   The video needs to show the viewer why it is important to support this cause.  We would like to capitalize on our theme, “Autism is a Journey” and have videos created by those within our community.  We want submissions from Moms, Dads, teachers, aunts or uncles.  Brothers, sisters, daughters…no matter your relationship we would love to have you share your story!   

Submissions should be uploaded onto your own youtube account with the URL sent to autismsociety@autismnebraska.org.  Videos must be received by Friday March 18, 2011.  The Walk committee will then select the top  submissions to be made available on our web site.  There it will be available to all walk participants to share on their own personal Firstgiving fundraising pages.  

Technically, the “winner” will be the video shared on the most fundraising pages.  However, we will all be winning thanks to this amazing opportunity to showcase the many faces of autism and the many paths on this journey.

 A few rules and reminders:

1. 2—4  minute video posted on Youtube with the direct URL submitted to the Autism Society.  Videos more than 4 minutes will not be included.

2. No music can be utilized unless it is freeware or public domain.  You must show written proof of permission to use for any mainstream copy write protected music. 

3. If you need additional photos of people from our community to incorporate into your video, please email autismsociety@autismnebraska.org. We will try to obtain photos from members of our community and make them available to anyone needing them. Any photos on the ASN (www.autismnebraska.org) website are allowed to be downloaded and incorporated into this project.

4. The Autism Society of Nebraska reserves the right to reject any video not reflecting the spirit of the Autism is a Journey Theme or the spirit of the Autism Puzzle Walk.

5. By submitting a video to this contest, you grant ASN an irrevocable, royalty free license to copy, distribute, modify, display and perform publicly, and otherwise use, as well as authorize others to use your video for any relevant purpose.

 Let the creativity begin!

Congratulations to local artist, James Bray! 

His “Autism is a journey” design was selected by our community for the 2011 Autism Puzzle Walk!  James and his Mom wanted to thank his teacher, Linsey Stangl and the staff at Brook Valley School for helping James bring his creation to life! 

 We definitely agree that it captures the spirit of our community! 

Great job James!